barrier built up about Hilton by the Summer Colonists, when she married Alec.
It didn't seem to me a mean or contemptible object. To endeavor to place our name—sunk into unjust oblivion since the reverses of our fortune—in the front ranks of social distinction, where it belonged, impressed me as a worthy ambition. I was glad to be used in Edith's operations. Even as a little girl something had rankled in my heart, too, when our once unrestricted fields and hills gradually became posted with signs such as, "Idlewold, Private Grounds," "Cedarcrest, No Picnickers Allowed," "Grassmere, No Trespassing."
I wasn't eighteen when I had my coming-out party. It was decided, and fully discussed in my presence, that, as young as I was, chance for social success would be greater this fall than a year hence, when the list of débutantes among our summer friends promised to be less distinguished. It happened that many of these débutantes lived in Boston in the winter, which isn't very far from Hilton, and Edith had already laid out before me her plan of campaign in that city, where she was going to give me a few luncheons and dinners during the month of December, and possibly a Ball if I proved a success.
If I proved a success! No young man ever started out in business with more exalted determination to make good than I. I used to lie awake nights and worry for fear the next morning's mail would not contain some cherished invitation or other. And when it did, and Edith came bearing it triumphantly up to my room, where I was being combed, brushed and polished by her maid, and kissed me ecstatically on the brow and whispered, "You little winner, you!" I could have run up a flag for relief and joy.
I kept those invitations stuck into the mirror of my dressing-table as if they were badges of honor. Edith used to make a point of having her luncheon and dinner guests take off their things in my room. I knew it was because of the invitations stuck in the mirror, and I was proud to be able to return something for all the money and effort she had expended.
It appeared incumbent upon me as a kind of holy duty to prove myself a remunerative investment. The long hours spent in the preparation of my toilette; the money paid out for my folderols; the deceptions we had to resort to for the sake of expediency; everything—schemes, plans and devices—all appeared to me as simply necessary parts of a big and difficult contest I had entered and must win. It never occurred to me then that my efforts were unadmirable. When at the end of my first season Edith and I discovered to our delight, when the Summer Colony returned to our hills, that our names had become fixtures on their exclusive list of invitations, I felt as much exaltation as any runner who ever entered a Marathon and crossed the white tape among the first six.
There! That's the kind of New England girl I am. I offer no excuses. I lay no blame upon my sister-in-law. There are many New England girls just like me who have the advantage of mothers—tender and solicitous mothers too. But even mothers cannot keep their children from catching measles if there's an epidemic—not unless they move away. The social fever in my community was simply raging when I was sixteen, and of course I caught it.
Even my education was governed by the demands of society. The boarding-school I went to was selected because of its reputation for wealth and exclusiveness. I practised two hours a day on the piano, had my voice trained, and sat at the conversation-French table at school, because Edith impressed upon me that such accomplishments would be found convenient and convincing. I learned to swim and dive, play tennis and golf, ride horseback, dance and skate, simply because if I was efficient in sports I would prove popular at summer hotels, country clubs and winter resorts. Edith and I attended symphony concerts in Boston every Friday afternoon, and opera occasionally, not because of any special passion for music, but to be able to converse intelligently at dinner parties and teas.
It was not until I had been out two seasons that I met Breckenridge Sewall. When Edith introduced me to society I was younger than the other girls of my set, and to cover up my deficiency in years I affected a veneer of worldly knowledge and sophistication that was misleading. It almost deceived myself. At eighteen I had accepted as a sad truth the wickedness of the world, and especially that of men. I was very blasé, very resigned—at least the two top layers of me were. Down underneath, way down, I know now I was young and innocent and hopeful. I know now that my first meeting with Breckenridge Sewall was simply one of the stratagems that the contest I had entered required of me. I am convinced that there was no thought of anything but harmless sport in my encounter.
Breckenridge Sewall's mother was the owner of Grassmere, the largest and most pretentious estate that crowns our hills. Everybody bowed down to Mrs. Sewall. She was the royalty of the Hilton Summer Colony. Edith's operations had not succeeded in piercing the fifty thousand dollar wrought-iron fence that surrounded the acres of Grassmere. We had never been honored by one of Mrs. F. Rockridge Sewall's heavily crested invitations. We had drunk tea in the same drawing-room with her; we had been formally introduced on one occasion; but that was all. She imported most of her guests from New York and Newport. Even the Summer Colonists considered an invitation from Mrs. Sewall a high mark of distinction.
Her only son Breckenridge was seldom seen in Hilton. He preferred Newport, Aix les Bains, or Paris. It was reported among us girls that he considered Hilton provincial and was distinctly bored at any attempt to inveigle him into its society. Most of us had never met him, but we all knew him by sight. Frequently during the summer months he might be seen speeding along the wide state road that leads out into the region of Grassmere, seated in his great, gray, deep-purring monster, hatless, head ducked down, hair blown straight back and eyes half-closed to combat the wind.
One afternoon Edith and I were invited to a late afternoon tea at Idlewold, the summer residence of Mrs. Leonard Jackson. I was wearing a new gown which Edith had given me. It had been made at an expensive dressmaker's of hers in Boston. I remember my sister-in-law exclaimed as we strolled up the cedar-lined walk together, "My, but you're stunning in that wistaria gown. It's a joy to buy things for you, Ruth. You set them off so. I just wonder who you'll slaughter this afternoon."
It was that afternoon that I met Breckenridge Sewall.
It was a week from that afternoon that two dozen American Beauties formed an enormous and fragrant center-piece on the dining-room table at old 240 Main Street. Suspended on a narrow white ribbon above the roses Edith had hung from the center light a tiny square of pasteboard. It bore in engraved letters the name of Breckenridge Sewall.
The family were deeply impressed when they came in for dinner. The twins, Oliver and Malcolm, who were in college at the time, were spending part of their vacation in Hilton; and my sister Lucy was there too. There was quite a tableful. I can hear now the Oh's and Ah's as I sat nonchalantly nibbling a cracker.
"Not too fast, Ruth, not too fast!" anxious Alec had cautioned.
"For the love o' Mike! Hully G!" had ejaculated Oliver and Malcolm, examining the card.
"O Ruth, tell us about it," my sister Lucy in awed tones had exclaimed.
I shrugged. "There's nothing to tell," I said. "I met Mr. Sewall at a tea not long ago, as one is apt to meet people at teas, that's all."
Edith from the head of the table, sparkling, too joyous even to attempt her soup, had sung out, "I'm proud of you, rascal! You're a wonder, you are! Listen, people, little sister here is going to do something splendid one of these days—she is!"
CHAPTER II
BRECKENRIDGE SEWALL
