First harvests : $b An episode in the life of Mrs. Levison Gower : A satire without a moralStimson, Frederic Jesup
General
First harvests : $b An episode in the life of Mrs. Levison Gower : A satire without a moral
Stimson, Frederic Jesup
American fiction -- 19th century
Arthur did not sleep well that night; but the morning was a lovely one
again. They had to wait until the New York train arrived, which was
not until the afternoon, for Mrs. Malgam. Kitty Farnum had started off
quietly, early in the morning, and Derwent had gone with her, meaning
to see her safely to New Haven, where her maid would meet her, and
then take the return train back with Mrs. Malgam. Lord Birmingham had
been too dull to think of this proceeding, and was in a vicious humor
all the day in consequence. Arthur was in two minds about going to see
Gracie in the morning. But as Birmingham sulked all day, there were not
men enough without him; so he went to walk with Mrs. Hay instead. Mrs.
Hay was one of those women whose flirting was less intellectual than
the American type; she delighted chiefly in appealing to men’s senses;
and her company was not ennobling.
But in the afternoon appeared Mrs. Malgam, clothed in the loveliest
of smiles and spring dresses. If she had any grudge against Flossie,
she did not show it; but spoke to her caressingly, and with a certain
deference, as from a giddy young girl to her chaperone. And then, as
if her conscience were safely in Flossie’s charge, she inaugurated a
most audacious and ostentatious love-affair with the peer; that is, she
caused him to inaugurate it. Baby Malgam never inaugurated anything;
she only looked as if she understood it. A pan of cream, indeed; not
milk and water; opaque, unfathomable to the eye, and yet, perhaps, not
deep. Wemyss talked with Arthur about it. “You are the only fellow left
whom one can talk to,” said he. “Birmingham’s too dull, and Derwent’s
not a man of the world.” Arthur’s heart warmed to him at once. “Baby
Malgam,” said he, “means to beat Mrs. Gower on her own ground.”
This was said on the way to Lenox. At five the horses were brought up
to the door; the brilliant party were again in their familiar seats,
and bowling briskly over the well-made roads. And our hero was himself
again; and the exhilaration of the motion, and the bright eyes and
pretty dresses, and the trained flattery of their most desirable
owners, and the admiration of the populace--to him as to them, was the
breath of his nostrils.
“A woman’s looks
Are barbèd hooks,
That catch by art
The strongest heart,”
says the old Elizabethan poet; but they swallowed the hooks in those
days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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