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Foxcroft Davis
Published by Good Press, 2021
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Pelham spent much more time with Mrs. Luttrell than with Elizabeth, and the two were mutually charmed. Mrs. Luttrell’s daring and positive language and her air of command were accompanied with a fascination of smile and voice which was effective even with her snow-white hair and crow’s feet around her eyes, still full of light and life. Pelham noticed that she was always surrounded by men, young and old. She treated the young men like patriarchs and the patriarchs like boys.
Baskerville, quiet, rather sedate, and seeking the middle-aged rather than the young, struck Pelham as one of the pleasantest fellows he had ever met. It looked as if this chance incursion of the Charity Ball would reveal more of the real American life to Pelham and Darrell than they might have met in a month of ordinary traveller’s advantages. Mrs. Luttrell had already engaged them for a couple of dinners and Baskerville for a club breakfast. Most of the people they met were agreeable, and they noticed that buoyancy of spirit and gayety of heart which a great writer on America, and another writer who was the most patronizing literary snob ever seen in North America, mutually agreed to be characteristic of American society. The ball itself, which was described by the society correspondents as of surpassing brilliancy, hardly reached that mark; but to three persons, Elizabeth Brandon, Pelham, and Darrell, it was an evening of delight, never to be forgotten.
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