Читать книгу Together - Robert Herrick - Страница 12

New York! It made her heart leap. She felt that she was now doing the wife's part admirably, furthering John's interests by being a competent hostess, and she liked to further his interests by giving pleasant dinners, in an attractive gown, and receiving the admiration of clever men. It had not been the way that her mother had helped on the Colonel; but it was another way, the modern way, and a very agreeable way.

"Darnell is an awful fool," Lane commented. "If he can't hold on to himself any better than he did to-night, he won't get far."

"Did you know that he had resigned?"

"No—it's just as well he has. I don't think the A. and P. would have much use for him. He's headed the wrong way;" and he added with hardly a pause, "I think we had better cut the Darnells out, Isabelle. They are not our sort."

Isabelle, thinking that this was the man's prejudice, made no reply.

"It was too bad Rob Falkner wouldn't come. It would have been a good thing for him to meet influential people."

Already she spoke with an air of commanding the right sort that her husband had referred to.

"He doesn't make a good impression on people," Lane remarked. "Perhaps he will make good with his work."

As a man who had made his own way he felt the great importance of being able to "get on" with people, to interest them, and keep them aware of one's presence. But he was broad enough to recognize other roads to success.

"So you were quite satisfied, John?" his wife asked as she kissed him good-night.

"Perfectly—it was the right thing—every way—all but Darnell's rot; and that didn't do much harm."

So the two went to their rest perfectly satisfied with themselves and their world. Lane's last conscious thought was a jumble of equipment bonds, and the idea of his wife at the head of a long dinner table in some very grand house—in New York.