“Yes, they’re all in as unnatural a mood as if they were posing for a photograph.  I wonder who invented this sort of thing?  Do you know,” said the old man, “that I think it’s rather worse with us than with any other people?  We’re a simple, sincere folk, domestic in our instincts, not gregarious or frivolous in any way; and when we’re wrenched away from our firesides, and packed in our best clothes into Jane’s gilded saloons, we feel vindictive; we feel wicked.  When the Boston being abandons himself—­or herself—­to fashion, she suffers a depravation into something quite lurid.  She has a bad conscience, and she hardens her heart with talk that’s tremendously cynical.  It’s amusing,” said Corey, staring round him purblindly at the groups and files of people surging and eddying past the corner where he sat with Mrs. Brinkley.

“No; it’s shocking,” said his companion.  “At any rate, you mustn’t say such things, even if you think them.  I can’t let you go too far, you know.  These young people think it heavenly, here.”

She took with him the tone that elderly people use with those older than themselves who have begun to break; there were authority and patronage in it.  At the bottom of her heart she thought that Bromfield Corey should not have been allowed to come; but she determined to keep him safe and harmless as far as she could.

From time to time the crowd was a stationary mass in front of them; then it dissolved and flowed away, to gather anew; there were moments when the floor near them was quite vacant; then it was inundated again with silken trains.  From another part of the house came the sound of music, and most of the young people who passed went two and two, as if they were partners in the dance, and had come out of the ball-room between dances.  There was a good deal of nervous talk, politely subdued among them; but it was not the note of unearthly rapture which Mrs. Brinkley’s conventional claim had implied; it was self-interested, eager, anxious; and was probably not different from the voice of good society anywhere.

XXXVI.

“Why, there’s Dan Mavering now!” said Mrs. Brinkley, rather to herself than to her companion.  “And alone!”

Dan’s face showed above most of the heads and shoulders about him; it was flushed, and looked troubled and excited.  He caught sight of Mrs. Brinkley, and his eyes brightened joyfully.  He slipped quickly through the crowd, and bowed over her hand, while he stammered out, without giving her a chance for reply till the end:  “O Mrs. Brinkley, I’m so glad to see you!  I’m going—­I want to ask a great favour of you, Mrs. Brinkley.  I want to bring—­I want to introduce some friends of mine to you—­some ladies, Mrs. Brinkley; very nice people I met last summer at Portland.  Their father—­General Wrayne—­has been building some railroads down East, and they’re very nice people; but they don’t know any one—­any ladies—­and they’ve been looking at the pictures ever since they came.  They’re very good pictures; but it isn’t an exhibition!” He broke down with a laugh.