I had to smile too. Mrs. Radigan is a wonderfully clever woman in a social way. She seems instinctively to do the most startling thing at the right time, and to have it all published in just the right place. I expect that within a year she will be known as New York's grandest dame, and that to be admitted to her house will be to be marked socially sterling. But Society is not an aristocracy. It is the purest democracy. The Radigans, for example, could never in the world have got in the smart set at Harvard or Princeton. They do not know enough. But here is Mrs. Radigan, whose father-in-law laid the foundation of a great fortune in pool-rooms, whose father lived a useful life between his home and his distillery; here is Mrs. Radigan, an immigrant from Kansas City, actually planning donkey-dinners. To what heights may she not soar?
I sat sipping tea and silently admiring this remarkable woman. But she never lets you rest with one surprise.
"Have you heard about Pearl?" she asked suddenly.
"Surely, Miss Veal is not ill?" I exclaimed, in some alarm.
"Oh, no--engaged," Mrs. Radigan replied laughing. "Engaged to Plumstone Smith."
I had been expecting this for some days, and believed myself prepared for it, but the announcement was none the less disagreeable. Of course I have never had anything more than admiration for the girl. What man could help that! Perhaps once or twice, in a vague way, there have come to me thoughts more ambitious, but they seemed too absurd. Pearl Veal is rich and beautiful, a rare combination, and it was not to be expected that she would waste herself, all her charm and wealth, on a struggling nobody, a man who could boast nothing. So such silly dreams were laughed at in my sober moments. But when the announcement came, when I realized that, vague and silly though they were, they must be put away forever, I was a bit hard hit--harder hit than I expected.
"Well, it is fine!" I cried, putting the best face possible on the matter. "Of course I knew it all along. But when are they to be married?"
"Never," said Mrs. Radigan, sipping tea. "You see, it's just for a while. It was announced, by mistake, in the papers this morning, but we have denied it. It will make a great deal of talk, you know, and the formal announcement will be made next week."