She kept her word. Dinners, receptions, luncheons, theatre parties,
in honor of the bride, followed in rapid succession, and when all had
entertained her, the less personal invitations followed as rapidly.
Her popularity was not founded on novelty.
No girl in her first season had ever enjoyed herself more naively
and she brought to every entertainment eager sparkling eyes and
dancing feet that never tired. She became the "reigning toast." At
parties she was surrounded by a bevy of admirers or forced to divide
her dances; for it was soon patent there was no jealousy in Talbot's
composition and that he took an equally naive pride in his wife's
success. When alone with women she was quite as animated and
interested, and, moreover, invited them to copy her gowns. Some had
been made in Paris, others in New York. The local dressmakers felt
the stirrings of ambition, and the shops sent for a more varied
assortment of fabrics.
Madeleine Talbot at this time was very happy, or, at least, too busy
to recall her earlier dreams of happiness. The whole-hearted devotion
to gaiety of this stranded little community, its elegance, despite
its limitations, its unbounded hospitality to all within its guarded
portals, its very absence of intellectual criticism, made the formal
life of her brief past appear dull and drab in the retrospect.
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