"But shouldn't you think they'd have a sort of fellow-feeling for the new arrivals?"
"Dear me, no! What's the good of attaining a pinnacle if you're going to share it with somebody who might push you off?"
Mrs. Webster's pursuit of Joan was not entirely opportunism. There was a good deal of admiration in it, mixed with a sort of malice which the larger nature had difficulty in comprehending. Joan found herself entered most unwillingly into an undignified petty rivalry with her neighbor. If she entertained some of her friends at luncheon without Mrs. Webster, the other instantly retaliated by giving a luncheon herself without Joan, sending in dessert and decorations afterwards to press home the point. If the Blair house in Spring put out new awnings, the Webster house erupted not only into awnings but into flower-boxes as well, with a corresponding air of triumph in its mistress. If Joan received some invitation which the other did not, there arose between them a slight, unmistakable coolness; whereas, if the contrary occurred, Mrs. Webster became modest and cordial again.
Yet when this unpleasant rivalry lay dormant, the two had many a friendly, neighborly time together over their sewing and their gardening; and once when Joan was taken suddenly ill the other showed herself genuinely kind, quick with womanly help and sympathy.
Joan could never quite make up her mind whether it was the pettiness of Society which makes the Mrs. Websters, or the Mrs. Websters who make the pettiness of Society. In any case, she lost what little taste she had for a purely social career. It was not good enough.
And so she turned the pent-up energies of her nature into those activities which are summed up nowadays under the general title of Clubwork. Investigations, commissions, agitations of all sorts came in for their share of her attention. She soon created for herself quite a following of less daring spirits, among them Emily Carmichael and others of the Jabberwock group who had graduated from the cocoon. It became known that whenever young Mrs. Blair undertook a thing, it went with a rush, not so much through her own efforts as through those of her henchmen. She was recognized in club circles, despite her youth, as something more valuable than a mere worker; she was an executive--All of which fed her vanity and her sense of usefulness; and left somewhere within her an aching void of dissatisfaction.