As Basil Randolph himself had done months
before, she endeavored to construct a general environment for them and to
determine their place in the general social fabric. She had, however, the
advantage of having seen them; she was not called to make an exiguous
evocation from the void. She still held that they were nice, good,
pleasant, friendly people: if they had subordinated themselves, docilely
and automatically, to the prepotent social and academic figures of the
society about them, that in no wise detracted from the favorable impression
they had made on her.
"Just the right parents for Bertram," she said fondly, to herself. She
made, almost unconsciously, the allowance that is still generally made,
among Americans, for the difference between two generations: the elder, of
course, continues to provide a staid, sober, and somewhat primitive
background for the brilliancy of the younger. Her own people, if they
appeared in Churchton, might seem a bit simple and provincial too.
Hortense took Carolyn's slight and fond observations with a silent scorn.
When she spoke at all, she was likely to say something about "family"; and
it was gathered that the dashing correspondent at Nashville was
conspicuously "well-connected.
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