He
is handsome. He is clever. He can interest wherever he chooses. Sometimes
he interests too easily and too deeply; sometimes in spite of himself and
to his own annoyance."
Eliza Marshall shot out these remarks like bullets from behind a
breastwork. At the end she set her jaws firmly, and stared at Statira
Belden with a proud defiance. Many a night had Truesdale's courses wet
her pillow with tears of sorrow and shame; she now wondered if it were
really she herself who had just celebrated his profligacy, and had seemed
to glory in it at that. She had surmised her son's disdain for the
importunities of Gladys McKenna, and she had joined with him in a ringing
derision when the Beldens had accused him of encouraging her in her folly
that he might employ her as a spy upon the happenings in their house. "My
son," she concluded, "will return at his own pleasure, and will always be
welcome under his father's roof."
Statira Belden's eyes sought the floor. It was she who had made it sure
that knowledge of Truesdale's transgression should reach the ears of
Susan Bates; yet her own son had just established relations with a
"baroness" who still lingered behind on the scene of the late national
festivities, and at the climax of an insane extravagance had been openly
cast off by his family.
"And Rosy?" said Statira Belden, presently, with a reconquered sweetness.
"One would expect to find her home at such a time as this.
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