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Updated: June 28, 2025
Abbott away with you," said the energetic hostess, to Sylvia; and before I quite understood what was happening, I had received and accepted an invitation to drive in the park with Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver.
In the beginning I blamed van Tuiver; but in the end I concluded that for most of her troubles she had herself to thank or perhaps the ancestors who had begotten her. She could talk more nobly and act more abjectly than any other woman I have ever known. She wanted pleasant sensations, and she expected life to furnish them continuously.
The old gentleman paused again; then frowning at her under his bushy eye-brows, he exclaimed, "I tell you, Mrs. van Tuiver, you're doing your husband a wrong. Your husband loves you, and he's a good man I've had some talks with him, and I know he's not got nearly so much on his conscience as the average husband.
Sylvia, in that first conversation, told me much about herself that she did not know she was telling. I became fairly certain, for instance, that she had not married Mr. Douglas van Tuiver for love.
She laughed as she said it; and of those present it was Aunt Varina alone who caught the ominous note, and saw the bitter curl of her lips as she spoke. Aunt Varina and her niece were the only persons there who knew Douglas van Tuiver well enough to appreciate the irony of the term "inveterate flatterer."
For years thereafter I used to catch a glimpse of her now and then, in the haunts of the birds of gorgeous plumage; but I never got a chance to speak to her, nor did she ever call on me again. So I do not know if Douglas van Tuiver still continues her eight thousand a year.
My hostess came, and ended my bewilderment. "You ought to get Mrs. van Tuiver on your child-labour committee," she said. A kind of panic seized me. I wanted to say, "Oh, it is Sylvia Castleman!" But then, how could I explain? I couldn't say, "I have your picture in my room, cut out of a newspaper." Still less could I say, "I know a friend of your husband."
And so, foot by foot, we backed away from the meeting, and when we had got clear of the throng, the master of the car stepped in, and we turned and made our way down Broad Street. And now I was to get a lesson in the aristocratic ideal. Of course van Tuiver was angry; I believe he even suspected his wife of having known of the meeting.
But he had his schedule, which neither storms nor the name of van Tuiver could alter. Besides, he pointed out, he could not land me at their place, as his vessel drew too much water to get anywhere near; and if he landed me elsewhere, I should be no better off, "If your friends are expecting you, they'll come here," he said, "and their launch can travel when nothing else can."
I detected a note of triumph in her voice; if she could say that she had got Mrs. van Tuiver to take up child-labour that indeed would be a feather to wear! "I will tell you all I can," I said. "That's my work in the world." "Take Mrs.
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