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etter--are haunted by one perpetual, sickening fear, the fear of being left out. And if you desire to pay correct ballroom compliments, you no longer go to her mother and tell her she's looking every bit as young as her daughter; you go to the daughter and tell her she's looking every bit as old as her mother, for that's what she wishes to do, that's what she tries for, what she talks, dresses, eats, drinks, goes to indecent plays and laughs for. Yes, we manage it through precocity, and the new-rich American parent has achieved at least one new thing under the sun, namely, the corruption of the child." My ladies silently consulted each other's expressions, after which, in equal silence, their gaze returned to me; but their equally intent scrutiny was expressive of quite different things. It was with expectancy that Mrs. Gregory looked at me--she wanted more. Not so Mrs. Weguelin; she gave me disapproval; it was shadowed in her beautiful, lustrous eyes that burned dark in her white face with as much fire as that of youth, yet it was not of youth, being deeply charged with retrospection. In what, then, had I sinned? For the little lady's next words, coldly murmured, increased in me an uneasiness, as of sin:-- "You have told us much that we are not accustomed to hear in Kings Port." "Oh, I haven't begun to tell you!" I exclaimed cheerily. "You certainly have not told us," said Mrs. Gregory, "how your 'precocity' escapes this divorce degradation." "Escape it? Those people think it is--well, provincial--not to have been divorced at least once!" Mrs. Gregory opened her eyes, but Mrs. Weguelin shut her lips. I continued: "Even the children, for their own little reasons, like it. Only last summer, in Newport, a young boy was asked how he enjoyed having a father and an ex-father." "Ex-father!" said Mrs. Gregory. "Vice-father is what I should call him." "Maria!" murmured Mrs. Weguelin, "how can you jest upon such topics?" "I am far from jesting, Julia. Well, young gentleman, and what answer did this precious Newport child make?" "He said (if you will pardon my giving you his little sentiment in his own quite expressive idiom), 'Me for two fathers! Double money birthdays and Christmases. See?' That was how he saw divorce." Once again my ladies consulted each other's expressions; we moved along High Walk in such silence that I heard the stiff little rustle which the palmettos were making across the stree
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