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