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Updated: May 27, 2025
She had written to the Aspreys before sailing with Mercedes, had found that they were wintering in Egypt, but would be back in America in Spring, ready to receive Madame von Marwitz and herself with open arms; and within those arms she had, a week ago, placed her treasure.
Lady Rose had ridden across deserts on camels, and sketched strange Asiatic mountains, and paid a pilgrimage to Tolstoi, and written books on all these exploits; and she had been to the Adirondacks that summer with the Aspreys and Madame von Marwitz, and was now writing a book on that.
It was she who had brought Madame von Marwitz and the Aspreys together. Madame von Marwitz already knew, of course, most of the people in America who were worth knowing; if she hadn't met them there she had met them in Europe; but the Aspreys she had, till then, never met, and they had been, indisputably, Miss Scrotton's possession.
Miss Scrotton, all her merit thus mildly withdrawn from her, stood silent for some moments looking away at the lake and the Turneresque trees. "It was so very kind of you, Mercedes, to have had Mr. Drew asked here," she observed at last, very casually. "It is a real opportunity for a young bohemian of that type; you are a true fairy-godmother to him; first Mrs. Forrester and now the Aspreys.
Miss Scrotton had known them slightly for several years; her father and Mr. Asprey had corresponded on some sociological theme and the Aspreys had called on him in London in a mood of proper deference and awe.
Forrester, that the Aspreys aren't responsible. It wasn't for them she'd have stayed, and I think they must realize it. No, it is all Claude Drew. He is at the bottom of everything that I feel as strange and altered in Mercedes. He has an unholy influence over her, oh, yes, I mean it, Mrs. Forrester. I have never seen Mercedes so swayed before." "Swayed?" Mrs. Forrester questioned.
Now August is empty and I had refused more than one very pleasant invitation in order to go to Mercedes. She isn't coming back for another three months." "You didn't care to go with the Aspreys to the Adirondacks?" "How could I go, dear Mrs. Forrester, when I was full of engagements here in London for July? And, moreover, they didn't ask me. It is rather curious when one comes to think of it.
I brought the Aspreys and Mercedes together, I gave her to them, one may say, but, I am afraid I must own it, they seized her and looked upon me as a useful rung in the ladder that reached her. It has been a disillusionizing experience, I can't deny it; but passons for the Aspreys and their kind. The fact is," said Miss Scrotton, dropping her voice a little, "the real fact is, dear Mrs.
"Oh, but yes, indeed. He managed the whole thing and when I think that he would in all probability never have seen the Aspreys if it had not been for me! Mercedes had him asked there, you know; they are very, but very, very fashionable people, they know everybody worth knowing all over the world. I needn't tell you that, of course.
But the ingenuities of hospitality which the Aspreys earnest and accomplished millionaires lavished upon their guests made one, she owned, balmily comfortable.
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