Part 2 (1/2)
”I am sure you are Miss Van Hoosen,” he said, with a pleasant smile; ”mother told me about you. And Rose has told me a great deal about you. So, you see, we are old acquaintances. Is it not a most perfect day? Have you been riding, or walking? Or has Rose kept you all day 'talking over things'?”
He was really nervous under Adriana's smiling eyes, and he felt it easier to go on talking than to take the next step. Fortunately Rose entered at the proper moment, and put every one conventionally at ease. And if people eating a good dinner together cannot get agreeably familiar, then there is something radically wrong with one-half the company, and perhaps also with the other.
Now, women are undoubtedly different beings in the presence of men.
Adriana was a new Adriana to Rose. She was more mentally alert, more a.s.sured and dignified in manner, and she even contradicted Harry in many things. But then she had an agreeable way of dealing with those from whom she disagreed; and Harry was only stimulated by her opposition to his views. The dinner went delightfully to the chatter of tongues and the light clash of crystal and china, and when it was over, Harry exclaimed:
”What a charming meal we have had! I had almost forgotten how very pleasant it is to eat with one's own family!”
”Quite as pleasant as to dine at a club, I should think, Harry,” said Rose.
”Talking of clubs, it is the ladies who run clubs nowadays, Miss Van Hoosen. Has Rose told you how many she belongs to? Most of the married men I know have had to resign their members.h.i.+ps; the candle cannot be burned at both ends, and, of course, the ladies' end must not be put out.”
”Clubs are a new-fangled notion to women yet, Harry. They will soon tire of their own company. You may be sure of that,” said Mrs.
Filmer.
”Not so very 'new-fangled,' mother,” continued Harry. ”Women's clubs have existed for centuries in Persia and Turkey. They call them 'The Bath,' but the 'bath' is only an excuse for getting together to talk gossip, and eat sweetmeats, and drink coffee. And if you like, I will lend you Aristophanes, mother, and you may read what came of women imitating such masculine ideas among those clever old Greeks.”
”I have no time to read such ancient books. And they would have to be very clever Greeks indeed to write anything the New York women of to-day would care to read. My dear Harry, they are a few thousand years behind the time.”
”Harry forgets,” said Rose, softly, ”that if one of a family have to retire from Club pleasures, justice decides against the man. It is not a matter of courtesy at all; men have had their day. I a.s.sure you, Woman is the Coming Man.”
”Oh! I think we may claim club privileges on much higher grounds,”
said Adriana. ”Every woman's club has before it the realization of some high purpose, or the redressing of some wrong. I never heard of a woman's club in New York on the oriental plan of tattle and gossip and eating sweetmeats.”
”Two of the clubs to which I belong,” continued Rose, ”have very important subjects under discussion. One is the _Domestic Symposium_, and we consider topics relating to Household Economy. At present, we are trying to solve the Servant Girl Question.”
”Oh!” cried Harry, with a hearty laugh, ”if you indeed solve that problem, Rose, men will give you the suffrage, and leave the currency, and the tariff, and all such small financial and political questions to you.”
”Thanks, Harry! It is likely we may voluntarily take them into consideration. This is an age of majorities. If we accomplish the suffrage, women will have a majority on all questions; and the reduction of man becomes a mere matter of time. I was going to remark, that another of my clubs occupies itself with the criticism of the highest poets of the age.”
”Who are they?” asked Adriana.
”That is the point we have been arguing all last winter. We have had difficulties. Mrs. Johnstone Miller raised objections to the consideration of any but American poets; and it took two months'
sittings to settle that question. You would be astonished at the strength of some people's prejudices!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rose, holding up her pretty hands to emphasize her own astonishment.
”Not at all,” answered Harry. ”They call their prejudices 'principles,'
and then, of course, they cannot be decently relinquished.”
”Mrs. Johnstone Miller is a very superior woman. It is a great thing to hear her criticise Longfellow, Whittier, Eugene Field, Will Carlton, and the rest. I am sure she believes that she could easily excel each in their own department, if she were not prevented by her high-bred exclusiveness.”
”Not unlikely, Rose; there is no impertinence like the impertinence of mediocrity.”
”_Mediocrity!_ Why, Harry, Mrs. Johnstone Miller is worth all of three million dollars, and it is very good of her to interest herself about literature at all.” And with these words Mrs. Filmer rose, and Harry gave her his arm, and the little party strolled slowly round the piazzas, and so through the blue _portieres_ into the drawing-room.
And as Adriana did so, she had a vivid memory of Harry Filmer as she first saw him, standing between the pale draperies. They had emphasized his black hair and eyes and garments very distinctly; for the young man was physically ”dark,” even the vivid coloring of his face being laid upon a skin more brown than white.
Mrs. Filmer made herself comfortable in the easiest of easy chairs, and began mechanically to turn and change the many rings upon her fingers; the act being evidently a habit, conducive to reflection or rest. She told Harry to ”go away and smoke his cigar”; but the young man said he ”was saving the pleasure until the moon rose; and in the meantime,” he added, ”he should expect the ladies to amuse him. Rose was talking of the greatest poets of the age,” he said, ”but I am wondering what possible use we can have for poetry. Our age is so distinctively material and epicurean.”