re a
dress of blue sheen, the light playing on its ripples; and as she stood,
apparently wholly at ease, looking down at the wife of Adolf Scherer, she
reminded me of an expert swordsman who, with remarkable skill, was
keeping a too pressing and determined aspirant at arm's length. I was
keenly aware that Maude did not possess this gift, and I realized for the
first time something of the similarity between Nancy's career and my own.
She, too, in her feminine sphere, exercised, and subtly, a power in which
human passions were deeply involved.

If Nancy Durrett symbolized aristocracy, established order and prestige,
what did Mrs. Scherer represent? Not democracy, mob rule--certainly. The
stocky German peasant woman with her tightly drawn hair and heavy jewels
seemed grotesquely to embody something that ultimately would have its
way, a lusty and terrible force in the interests of which my own services
were enlisted; to which the old American element in business and
industry, the male counterpart of Nancy Willett, had already succumbed.
And now it was about to storm the feminine fastnesses! I beheld a woman
who had come to this country with a shawl aver her head transformed into
a new species of duchess, sure of herself, scorning the delicate
euphemisms in which Fancy's kind were wont to refer to asocial realm,
that was no less real because its boundaries had not definitely been
defined. She held her stick firmly, and gave Nancy an indomitable look.

"I want you to meet my daughters. Gretchen, Anna, come here and be
introduced to Mrs. Durrett."

It was not without curiosity I watched these of the second generation as
they made their bows, noted the differentiation in the type for which an
American environment and a "finishing school" had been responsible.
Gretchen and Anna had learned--in crises, such as the present--to
restrain the superabundant vitality they had inherited. If their
cheekbones were a little too high, their Delft blue eyes a little too
small, their colour was of the proverbial rose-leaves and cream. Gene
Hollister's difficulty was to know which to marry. They were nice
girls,--of that there could be no doubt; there was no false modesty in
their attitude toward "society"; nor did they pretend--as so many silly
people did, that they were not attempting to get anywhere in particular,
that it was less desirable to be in the centre than on the dubious outer
walks. They, too, were so glad to meet Mrs. Durrett.