Your bright woman in society is apt to be keen at
home. What is called vivacity abroad may easily degenerate into
snappiness by the hearth.
"I think it is rather ridiculous being called plain Mrs. Howard-Alexis,"
added Etta, with a pout.
They were going to a ball--the first since their marriage. They had just
dined, and Paul had followed his wife into the drawing-room. He took a
simple-minded delight in her beauty, which was of the description that
is at its best in a gorgeous setting. He stood looking at her, noting
her grace, her pretty, studied movements. There were, he reflected, few
women more beautiful--none, in his own estimation, fit to compare with
her.
She had hitherto been sweetness itself to him, enlivening his lonely
existence, shining suddenly upon his self-contained nature with a
brilliancy that made him feel dull and tongue-tied.
Already, however, he was beginning to discover certain small
differences, not so much of opinion as of thought, between Etta and
himself. She attached an importance to social function, to social
opinion, to social duties, which he in no wise understood. Invitations
were showered upon them. A man who is a prince and prefers to drop the
title need not seek popularity in London. The very respectable reader
probably knows as well as his humble servant, the writer, that in London
there is always a social circle just a little lower than one's own which
opens its doors with noble, disinterested hospitality, and is prepared
to lick the blacking from any famous foot.
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