"I thought you would be interested to hear that my cousins had recognized me at last. I remember, you thought it strange that they should take so little notice of me." Flossy's festive manner had disappeared before the tart reception of her confidences, and her keen wits, baffled in their search for flattery, recalled the suspicions which were only slumbering. She realized that Selma was seriously offended with her, and though she did not choose to acknowledge to herself that she knew the cause, she had already guessed it. An encounter at repartee had no terrors for her, if necessary, and the occasion seemed to her opportune for probing the acc.u.mulating mysteries of Selma's hostile demeanor. Yet, without waiting for a response to her last remark, she changed the subject, and said, volubly, "I hear that your husband has refused to build the new Parsons house because Mrs.

Parsons insisted on drawing the plans."

Selma's pale, tense face flushed. She thought for a moment that she was being taunted.

"That was Mr. Littleton's decision, not mine."

"I admire his independence. He was quite right. What do Mrs. Parsons or her daughter know about architecture? Everybody is laughing at them. You know I consider your husband a friend of mine, Selma."

"And we were friends, too, I believe?" Selma exclaimed, after a moment of stern silence.

"Naturally," responded Flossy, with a slightly sardonic air, prompted by the acerbity with which the question was put.

"Then, if we were friends--are friends, why have you ceased to a.s.sociate with us, simply because you live in another street and a finer house?"

Flossy gave a gasp. "Oh," she said to herself, "it's true. She is jealous. Why didn't I appreciate it before?"

"Am I not a.s.sociating with you now by calling on you, Selma?" she said aloud. "I don't understand what you mean."

"You are calling on me, and you asked us to dinner to meet--to meet just the people we knew already, and didn't care to meet; but you have never asked us to meet your new friends, and you left us out when you gave your dancing party."

"You do not dance."

"How do you know?"

"I have never a.s.sociated you with dancing. I a.s.sumed that you did not dance."

"What grounds had you for such an a.s.sumption?"

"Really, Selma, your catechism is most extraordinary. Excuse my smiling.

And I don't know how to answer your questions--your fierce questions any better. I didn't ask you to my party because I supposed that you and your husband were not interested in that sort of thing, and would not know any of the people. You have often told me that you thought they were frivolous."

"I consider them so still."

"Then why do you complain?"

"Because--because you have not acted like a friend. Your idea of friendship has been to pour into my ears, day after day, how you had been asked to dinner by this person and taken up by that person, until I was weary of the sound of your voice, but it seems not to have occurred to you, as a friend of mine, and a friend and admirer of my husband, to introduce us to people whom you were eager to know, and who might have helped him in his profession. And now, after turning the cold shoulder on us, and omitting us from your party, because you a.s.sumed I didn't dance, you have come here this morning, in the name of friendship, to tell me that your cousins, at last, have invited you to dinner. And yet you think it strange that I'm not interested. That's the only reason you came--to let me know that you are a somebody now; and you expected me, as a friend and a n.o.body, to tell you how glad I am."

Flossy's eyes opened wide. Free as she was accustomed to be in her own utterances, this flow of bitter speech delivered with seer-like intensity was a new experience to her. She did not know whether to be angry or amused by the indictment, which caused her to wince notwithstanding that she deemed it slander. Moreover the insinuation that she had been a bore was humiliating.

"I shall not weary you soon again with my confidences," she answered.

"So it appears that you were envious of me all the time--that while you were preaching to me that fashionable society was hollow and un-American, you were secretly unhappy because you couldn't do what I was doing--because you weren't invited, too. Oh, I see it all now; it's clear as daylight. I've suspected the truth for some time, but I've refused to credit it. Now everything is explained. I took you at your word; I believed in you and your husband and looked up to you as literary people--people who were interested in fine and enn.o.bling things. I admired you for the very reason that I thought you didn't care, and that you didn't need to care, about society and fashionable position. I kept saying to you that I envied you your tastes, and let you see that I considered myself your real inferior in my determination to attract attention and oblige society to notice us. I was guileless and simpleton enough to tell you of my progress--things I would have blushed to tell another woman like myself--because I considered you the embodiment of high aims and spiritual ideas, as far superior to mine as the poetic star is superior to the garish electric light. I thought it might amuse you to listen to my vanities. Instead, it seems you were masquerading and were eating your heart out with envy of me--poor me.

You were ambitious to be like me."

"I wouldn't be like you for anything in the world."

"You couldn't if you tried. That's one of the things which this extraordinary interview has made plain beyond the shadow of a doubt. You are aching to be a social success. You are not fit to be. I have found that out for certain to-day."

"It is false," exclaimed Selma, with a tragic intonation. "You do not understand. I have no wish to be a social success. I should abhor to spend my life after the manner of you and your a.s.sociates. What I object to, what I complain of, is that, in spite of your fine words and pretended admiration of me, you have preferred these people, who are exclusive without a shadow of right, to me who was your friend, and that you have chosen to ignore me for the sake of them, and behaved as if you thought I was not their equal or your equal. That is not friendship, it is sn.o.bbishness--un-American sn.o.bbishness."

"It is very amusing. Amusing yet depressing," continued Flossy, without heed to this a.s.severation. "You have proved one of my ideals to be a delusion, which is sad." She had arisen and stood gently swaying pendent by its crook her gay parasol, with her head on one side, and seeming for once to be choosing her words judicially. "When we met first and I nearly rushed into your arms, I was fascinated, and I said to myself that here was the sort of American woman of whom I had dreamed--the sort of woman I had fondly imagined once that I might become. I saw you were unsophisticated and different from the conventional women to whom I was accustomed, and, even at first, the things you said every now and then gave me a creepy feeling, but you were inspiring to look at--though now that the scales have fallen from my eyes I wonder at my infatuation--and I continued to worship you as a G.o.ddess on a pedestal. I used to say to Gregory, 'there's a couple who are to the manner born; they never have to make believe. They are genuinely free and gentle souls.' Your husband? I can't believe that I have been deluded in regard to him, also. I just wonder if you appreciate him--if it is possible that he has been deluded, also. That's rank impertinence, I know; but after all, we are unbosoming our thoughts to each other to-day, and may as well speak openly. You said just now that it was his decision not to go on with the Parsons house. Did you disapprove of it?"

"Yes, I disapproved of it," answered Selma with flashing eyes. "And what if I did?"

She rose and stood confronting her visitor as though to banish her from the house.

"I'm going," said Flossy. "It's none of my concern of course, and I'm aware that I appear very rude. I'm anxious though not to lose faith in your husband, and now that I've begun to understand you, my wits are being flooded with light. I was saying that you were not fit to be a social success, and I'm going to tell you why. No one else is likely to, and I'm just mischievous and frank enough. You're one of those American women--I've always been curious to meet one in all her glory--who believe that they are born in the complete panoply of flawless womanhood; that they are by birthright consummate house-wives, leaders of the world's thought and ethics, and peerless society queens. All this by instinct, by heritage, and without education. That's what you believe, isn't it? And now you are offended because you haven't been invited to become a leader of New York society. You don't understand, and I don't suppose you ever will understand, that a true lady--a genuine society queen--represents modesty and sweetness and self-control, and gentle thoughts and feelings; that she is evolved by gradual processes from generation to generation, not ready made. Oh, you needn't look at me like that. I'm quite aware that if I were the genuine article I shouldn't be talking to you in this fashion. But there's hope for me because I'm conscious of my shortcomings and am trying to correct them; whereas you are satisfied, and fail to see the difference between yourself and the well-bred women whom you envy and sneer at. You're pretty and smart and superficial and--er--common, and you don't know it.

I'm rather dreadful, but I'm learning. I don't believe you will ever learn. There! Now I'm going."

"Go!" cried Selma with a wave of her arm. "Yes, I am one of those women.

I am proud to be, and you have insulted by your aspersions, not only me, but the spirit of independent and aspiring American womanhood. You don't understand us; you have nothing in common with us. You think to keep us down by your barriers of caste borrowed from effete European courts, but we--I--the American people defy you. The time will come when we shall rise in our might and teach you your place. Go! Envy you? I would not become one of your frivolous and purposeless set if you were all on your bended knees before me."

"Oh, yes you would," exclaimed Flossy, glancing back over her shoulder.

"And it's because you've not been given the chance that we have quarrelled now."

CHAPTER X.

The morning after her drastic interview with Mrs. Williams, Selma studied herself searchingly in her mirror. Of all Flossy's candid strictures the intimation that she was not and never would be completely a lady was the only one which rankled. The effrontery of it made her blood boil; and yet she consulted her gla.s.s in the seclusion of her chamber in order to rea.s.sure herself as to the spiteful falsity of the criticism. Wild horses would not have induced her to admit even to herself that there was the slightest ground for it; still it rankled, thereby suggesting a sub-consciousness of suspicion on the look out for just such a calumny.

She gave Littleton her own version of the quarrel. Her explanation was that she had charged Flossy with a lack of friendship in failing to invite her to her ball, and convicted her of detestable sn.o.bbery; that she had denounced this conduct in vigorous language, that they had parted in anger, and that all intercourse between them was at an end.

"We understand each other now," she added. "I have felt for some time that we were no longer sympathetic; and that something of this kind was inevitable. I am glad that we had the chance to speak plainly, for I was able to show her that I had been waiting for an excuse to cut loose from her and her frivolous surroundings. I have wearied my spirit long enough with listening to social inanities, and in lowering my standards to hers for the sake of appearing friendly and conventional. That is all over now, thank heaven."

It did not occur to Selma that there was any inconsistency in these observations, or that they might appear a partial vindication of her husband's point of view. The most salient effect of her encounter with Flossy had been suddenly to fuse and crystallize her mixed and seemingly contradictory ambitions into utter hostility to conventional fashionable society. Even when her heart had been hungering for an invitation to Flossy's ball, she considered that she despised these people, but the interview had served to establish her in the glowing faith that they, by their inability to appreciate her, had shown themselves unworthy of further consideration. The desire which she had experienced of late for a renewal of her intimacy with Mrs. Earle and a rea.s.sertion of her former life of independent feminine activity had returned to her, coupled with the crusading intention to enroll herself openly once more in the army of new American women, whose impending victorious campaign she had prophesied in her retort to Mrs. Williams's maledictions. She had, in her own opinion, never ceased to belong to this army, and she felt herself now more firmly convinced than ever that the course of life of those who had turned a cold shoulder on her was hostile to the spirit of American inst.i.tutions. So far as her husband was concerned, imaginative enterprise and the capacity to take advantage of opportunities still seemed to her of the essence of fine character.

Indeed, she was not conscious of any change in her point of view. She had resented Flossy's charge that she desired to be a social success, and had declared that her wounded feelings were solely due to Flossy's betrayal of friendship, not to balked social ambition. Consequently it was no strain on her conscientiousness to feel that her real sentiments had always been the same.

Nevertheless she scrutinized herself eagerly and long in her mirror, and the process left her serious brow still clouded. She saw in the gla.s.s features which seemed to her suggestive of superior womanhood, a slender clear-cut nose, the nostrils of which dilated nervously, delicately thin, compressed lips, a pale, transparent complexion, and clear, steel-like, greenish-brown eyes looking straight and boldly from an anxious forehead surmounted with a coiffure of elaborately and smoothly arranged hair. She saw indisputable evidence that she had ceased to be the ethically attractive, but modishly unsophisticated and physically undeveloped girl, who had come to New York five years before, for her figure was compact without being unduly plump, her cheeks becomingly oval, and her toilette stylish. There were rings on her fingers, and her neck-gear was smart. Altogether the vision was satisfactory, yet she recognized as she gazed that her appearance and general effect were not precisely those of Flossy, Pauline, or Mrs. Hallett Taylor. She had always prided herself on the distinction of her face, and admired especially its freedom from gross or unintellectual lines. She did not intend to question its superiority now; but Flossy's offensive words rang in her ears and caused her to gnaw her lips with annoyance. What was the difference between them? Flossy had dared to call her common and superficial; had dared to insinuate that she never could be a lady. A lady? What was there in her appearance not lady-like? In what way was she the inferior of any of them in beauty, intelligence or character?

Rigorous as was the scrutiny, the face in the mirror seemed to her an unanswerable refutation of the slander. What was the difference? Was it that her eyes were keener and brighter, her lips thinner and less fleshly, her general expression more wide-awake and self-reliant? If so, were these not signs of superiority; signs that they, not she, were deficient in the attributes of the best modern womanhood in spite of their affectation of exclusiveness?

The result of this process of self-examination in her looking-gla.s.s, which was not limited to a single occasion, established more firmly than ever in Selma's opinion the malignant falsity of the imputation, and yet she was still haunted by it. She was tortured by the secret thought that, though her ambition had been to become just like those other women, she was still distinguishable from them; and moreover, that she was baffled in her attempt to a.n.a.lyze the distinction. Distinguishable even from Flossy--from Flossy, who had slighted and then reviled her!

Why had she ever faltered in her distrust of these enemies of true American society? Yet this lingering sense of torture served to whet her new-found purpose to have done with them forever, and to obtain the recognition and power to which she was ent.i.tled, in spite of their impertinence and neglect.

The announcement was made to her by Wilbur at about this time that his plans for Wetmore College had been accepted, and that he was to be the architect of the new buildings. As he told her his face showed a tremulous animation which it had not worn for many weeks, and he regarded her for a moment with shy eagerness, as though he half hoped that this vindication of his purposes by success might prompt her to tender some sort of apology, and thus afford him the chance to persuade himself that he had been mistaken after all in his judgment of her.

"You must be very much pleased," she said. "And so am I, of course."

Then, after a moment of reflective abstraction, she asked with sudden eagerness, "How long will it take to build them?"

"Two or three years, I suppose."

"And you would be obliged to go frequently to Benham?"

"In order to oversee the work I should have to make short trips there from time to time."

"Yes. Wilbur," she exclaimed, with her exalted expression, "why shouldn't we go to Benham to live? I have been thinking a great deal lately about what we said to each other that time when you felt so badly, and I have come to the conclusion that our living in New York is what is really the trouble. I have the feeling, Wilbur, that in some other place than this cruel, conventional city we should be happier than we are now--indeed, very happy. Has it ever occurred to you? You see, New York doesn't understand me; it doesn't understand you, Wilbur. It sneers at our aspirations. Benham is a growing, earnest city--a city throbbing with the best American spirit and energy. I suggest Benham because we both know it so well. The college buildings would give you a grand start, and I--we both would be in our proper sphere."

Littleton had started at the suggestion. As a drowning man will grasp at a straw, his grieving soul for an instant entertained the plan as a panacea for their woes. But his brow grew grave and sad under the influence of reflection as she proceeded to set forth her reasons in her wrapt fashion. If he had not learned to remain cold under the witchery of her intense moods, he no longer hesitated to probe her fervid a.s.sertions with his self-respecting common-sense.