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Much of this transformation had been due to the initiative and leadership of Nancy Durrett.... Great and sudden wealth, however, if combined with obscure antecedents and questionable qualifications, was still looked upon askance. In spite of the fact that Adolf Scherer had "put us on the map," the family of the great iron-master still remained outside of the social pale.
If I remember rightly, it was about this time that golf was introduced, tennis had become a commonplace, professional baseball was in full swing; Ham Durrett had even organized a local polo team.... The man who failed to win something tangible in sport or law or business or politics was counted out. Such was the spirit of America, in the closing years of the nineteenth century.
If my mother suspected that I was anticipating marriage, and said nothing, Nancy Durrett suspected and spoke out. Life is such a curious succession of contradictions and surprises that I record here without comment the fact that I was seeing much more of Nancy since her marriage than I had in the years preceding it. A comradeship existed between us.
She has not the heart, it is so with all your people of society. For them it is not what you are, but what you have done, and what you have." The banality of this observation was mitigated by the feeling she threw into it. "I think you misjudge Mrs. Durrett," I said, incautiously. "She has never before had the opportunity of meeting Mr. Scherer of appreciating him." "Mrs.
I met her just after the train left the Louisville station; we had opposite berths last night and breakfast in Pineville at the same table, so we are fairly well acquainted." "Miss Durrett I know your uncle very well and have met your aunt. I do not see either of them here." "I should have telegraphed, but am careless about such matters."
Beyond the range of hills rising from the far side of the Ashuela was the wide valley in which was situated the Cloverdale Country Club, with its polo field, golf course and tennis courts; and in this same valley some of our wealthy citizens, such as Howard Ogilvy and Leonard Dickinson, had bought "farms," week-end playthings for spring and autumn. Hambleton Durrett had started the fashion.
The fact that many of these gentlemen literary and otherwise returned to their own shores better fed and with larger balances in the banks than when they departed is neither here nor there. Egyptians are proverbially created to be spoiled. The wiser and more fortunate of these travellers and students of life brought letters to Mr. and Mrs. Hambleton Durrett.
Watling spoke rather tactfully, I thought of Maude and the children, and ventured the surmise that they would be returning in a few months. I interpreted this, indeed, as in rather the nature of a kindly hint that such a procedure would be wise in view of the larger life now dawning for me, but I made no comment.... He even sympathized with Nancy Durrett.
"Oh, I'm sure it will turn out all right," she replied. "Now you'd better run along, I know you're late." "I am late," I admitted, rather lamely. "If you don't care for Lammerton's drawings, we'll get another architect." Several years before Mr. Lammerton had arrived among us with a Beaux Arts moustache and letters of introduction to Mrs. Durrett and others.
That household was symptomatic if they liked of the new order of things; and it was rare indeed when both members of it were at home to entertain them. If Mr. Durrett were in the city, and they did not happen to be Britons with sporting proclivities, they simply were not entertained: when Mrs.
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