Still, if he had fallen in love with me
he would have remained an eminent citizen--without a hideous interval
he hardly can care to recall--and become the greatest editor in
California. Have they any social position in New York?"
"Probably. I did not ask. They hardly looked like outcasts. You must
remember their story is wholly unknown in fashionable New York.
Scarcely any one here knows any one in New York Society; or has time
for it when passing through.... But I don't fancy they care
particularly for Society. In Berlin, whenever it was possible, they
went off by themselves. But of course it was necessary for both to go
in Society there, and she must have been able to help him a good deal."
"European Society! I suppose she'll be presented to the Queen of
England next!--But no! Thank heaven she can't be. Good Queen Victoria
is as rigid about divorce as we are. Nor shall she ever cross my
threshold if she returns here." And Mrs. Abbott scalded herself with
her third cup of tea and emitted terrible sounds.
Mrs. Yorba, a tall, spare, severe-looking woman, who had taught
school in New England in her youth, and never even powdered her nose,
spoke for the first time. Her tones were slow and portentious, as
became one who, owing to her unfortunate nativity, had sailed slowly
into this castellated harbor, albeit on her husband's golden ship.
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