Oh, I win her triumphs, triumphs in plenty! Because the Earl admires me,
hasn't she once sat at the same table with Mrs. Sloane Schuyler, who
refuses to meet intimately more than a hundred New York women; and hasn't
she twice or thrice talked "autos" with Mrs. Fredericks; and isn't she
envied by all the women of her own set because the Earl and his cousin
shine refulgent from her box at the Opera?
Triumphs, certainly; doesn't Mrs. Henry wrangle with Meg over my poor
body, demanding that I sit in her box, and that I join Peggy's Badminton
club, and bring the Earl, who would bring the youths and maidens who would
bring the prestige that would, some day, make a Newport cottage socially
feasible?
That's her dream, Meg's is Mayfair; she thinks of nothing but how to
invest me in London and claim her profit when I am Strathay's Countess, or
mistress of some other little great man's hall. Oh, I understand them;
Mrs. Henry's the worst; oily!
I wonder if London is less petty than New York; if I should be out of the
tug and scramble there. But I mustn't judge New York, viewing it through
the Van Dams' eyes.
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