She was breathless and rather frightened, for although of an adventurous
spirit, which had led her to slide down the pillars of the verandah at
night when her legs were longer than her years, and during the past winter
to make a hardly less dignified exit by a side door when her worthy but
hopelessly Victorian mother was asleep, this was the first time that she
had been out after midnight.
And it was five o'clock in the morning!
She had gone with Aileen Lawton, her mother's pet aversion, to a party
given by one of those new people whom Mrs. Groome, a massive if crumbling
pillar of San Francisco's proud old aristocracy, held in pious disdain, and
had danced in the magnificent ballroom with the tireless exhilaration of
her eighteen years until the weary band had played Home Sweet Home.
She had never imagined that any entertainment could be so brilliant, even
among the despised nouveaux riches, nor that there were so many flowers
even in California. Her own coming-out party in the dark double parlors of
the old house among the eucalyptus trees, whose moans and sighs could be
heard above the thin music of piano and violin, had been so formal and dull
that she had cried herself to sleep after the last depressed member of the
old set had left on the stroke of midnight. Even Aileen's high mocking
spirits had failed her, and she had barely been able to summon them for
a moment as she kissed the friend, to whom she was sincerely devoted, a
sympathetic good-night.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25