and money.
It isn't the cleverest women who make the best wives, sir."

"Well, I'm not objecting to her being a wife. Only it does not follow
that, because my uncle and aunts are in love with her, I should want to
marry her."

"I said nothing about marriage, my touchy friend. I am not advising
you to be engaged to two women at the same time. And I like Irene
immensely."

It was evident that she had taken a great fancy to the girl. They were
always together; it seemed to happen so, and King could hardly admit
to himself that Mrs. Glow was de trop as a third. Mr. Bartlett Glow
was very polite to King and his friend, and forever had one excuse and
another for taking them off with him--the races or a lounge about town.
He showed them one night, I am sorry to say, the inside of the Temple of
Chance and its decorous society, its splendid buffet, the quiet tables
of rouge et noir, and the highly respectable attendants--aged men,
whitehaired, in evening costume, devout and almost godly in appearance,
with faces chastened to resignation and patience with a wicked world,
sedate and venerable as the deacons in a Presbyterian church. He was
lonesome and wanted company, and, besides, the women liked to be by
themselves occasionally.

One might be amused at the Saratoga show without taking an active part
in it, and indeed nobody did seem to take a very active part in it.
Everybody was looking on. People drove, visited the springs--in a
vain expectation that excessive drinking of the medicated waters would
counteract the effect of excessive gormandizing at the hotels--sat about
in the endless rows of armchairs on the piazzas, crowded the heavily
upholstered parlors, promenaded in the corridors, listened to the music
in the morning, and again in the afternoon, and thronged the stairways
and passages, and blocked up the entrance to the ballrooms. Balls? Yes,
with dress de rigueur, many beautiful women in wonderful toilets, a few
debutantes, a scarcity of young men, and a delicious band--much better
music than at the White Sulphur.

And yet no society. But a wonderful agglomeration, the artist was
saying. It is a robust sort of place. If Newport is the queen of the
watering-places, this is the king. See how well fed and fat the
people are, men and women large and expansive, richly dressed,
prosperous--looking! What a contrast to the family sort of life at the
White Sulphur! Here nobody, apparently, cares for anybody else--not
much