The leader of the band was the chief clerk in the First National Bank, Mr. Jerome Westbrook by name, himself Spring Valley's glass of fashion and mold of form, and not unconscious of the public attention attracted to himself in his present capacity. Now and again he looked out over the audience to see if he could locate a certain young lady, none less than Sallie Lester, the daughter of the president of his bank, upon whom he had bestowed the honor of his affections. He was willing to add thereto eke the honor of his hand.
It was as Aurora Lane had said--this annual gathering of Miss Julia's was the social clearing house of the community. And this typical attendance, representative of the little city at its best, offered that strange contrast of the sexes so notable in any American assemblage. The men were ordinary of look and garb, astonishingly ordinary, if one might use the term; stalwart enough, but slouchy, shapeless, and ill-clad. Not so the women, who seemed as though of another and superior social world. If here and there the face of a man seemed stolid, cloddish, peasant-like, not so any of the half dozen faces of the women next adjoining him. Type, class--call what you like that which is owned by the average American woman, even of middle class--that distinction was as obvious as is usual in all such gatherings. Scattered here and there through this audience, as in any audience of even the humblest sort in America, were a half dozen faces of young women, any of whom must have been called very beautiful, strikingly beautiful--beautiful as Aurora Lane must once have been.
The apparel of the men was nondescript. That of the women, however or wherever secured, made them creatures apart. The men, too, sat uncommunicative, silent; whereas their daughters or spouses turned, chattering, laughing, waving a hand to this or that friend. In short, the women availed themselves fully, as women will, of this opportunity of social intercourse. And always, as head turned to head, there was a look, a whispered word, of woman to woman. Little by little, in the mysterious way of such assemblages, every woman in the house came to know that Aurora Lane and her boy--who had only been hid, and not dead, all these years--were seated on the back seat, next to Old Man Rawlins. Did anyone ever hear the like of _that_? In reality Spring Valley was out to hear the rest of the news about Aurora Lane and her unfathered boy as soon as possible. Gossip covers all the nuances, the shades, the inner and hidden things of information, especially when information may be classified as scandal. This is the real news. It never needs wings. It needed no wings now.