It was because she had so much to
do. She had married into a world that took itself seriously: the
"idle rich," who worked like slaves. "You know," she said, while we
sat on a pink satin couch, and a footman brought us coffee: "you
read that Mrs. So-and-so is a 'social queen,' and you think it's a
newspaper phrase, but it isn't; she really feels that she's a queen,
and other people feel it, and she goes through her ceremonies as
solemnly as the Lord's anointed."
She went on to tell me some of her adventures. She had a keen sense
of fun, and was evidently suffering for an outlet for it. She saw
through the follies and pretences of people in a flash, but they
were all such august and important people that, out of regard for
her husband, she dared not let them suspect her clairvoyant power.
She referred to her experiences abroad. She had not liked
Europe--being quite frankly a provincial person. To Castleman County
a foreigner was a strange, dark person who mixed up his consonants,
and was under suspicion of being a fiddler or an opera-singer. The
people she had met under her husband's charge had been socially
indubitable, but still, they were foreigners, and Sylvia could never
really be sure what they meant.
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