The Sisters-In-Law | Page 7

all these parties?"
"Oh, yes. I like to dance after the day's work. But I am not what you
would call a society man. I haven't the time."
Mrs. Groome was not usually blunt, but she suddenly scented danger
and she had not fully recovered her poise.
"You are in business?" She disliked business intensely. All gentlemen
of her day had followed one of the professions.
"I am in a wholesale commission house. But I hope to be in business
for myself one day."
"Ah."
Still, all young men in this terrible twentieth century could not be
lawyers. Mrs. Groome knew enough of the march of time to be aware
of the increasing difficulties in gaining a bare livelihood. Tom Abbott
was a lawyer, like his father before him, and his grandfather in the
fifties. It was one of the oldest firms in San Francisco, but she recalled
his frequent and bitter allusions to the necessity of sitting up nights
these days if a man wanted to keep out of the poorhouse.
And at least this young man did not look like an idler or a wastrel. No
man could have so clear a skin and be so well-groomed at six in the
morning if he drank or gambled. Alexander Groome had done both and
she knew the external seals.
"Is Aileen Lawton a friend of yours?" she asked sharply.
"I have met Miss Lawton at a number of dances but she has not done
me the honor to ask me to call."
"I think the more highly of you. Judge Lawton is an old friend of mine.
His wife, who was much younger than the Judge, was an intimate

friend of my daughter, Mrs. Abbott. Alexina and Aileen have grown up
together. I find it impossible to forbid her the house. But I disapprove
of her in every way. She paints her lips, smokes cigarettes, boasts that
she drinks cocktails, and uses the most abominable slang. I kept my
daughter in New York for two years as much to break up the intimacy
as to finish her education, but the moment we returned the intimacy
was renewed, and for my old friend's sake I have been forced to submit.
He worships that--that--really ill-conditioned child."
"Oh--Miss Lawton is a good sort, and--well--I suppose her position is
so strong that she feels she can do as she pleases. But she is all right,
and not so different--"
"Do you mean to tell me that you approve of girls--nice
girls--ladies--painting themselves, smoking, drinking cocktails?"
"I do not." His tones were emphatic and his good American gray eyes
wandered to the fresh innocent face of the girl who had captivated him
last night.
"I should hope not. You look like an exceptionally decent young man.
Have you had breakfast? Alexina, go and ask Maggie, if she has
recovered herself, to make another cup of coffee."

II
Alexina disappeared, repressing a desire to sing; and young Dwight,
receiving permission, seated himself on the grass at Mrs. Groome's feet.
He was lithe and graceful and as he threw back his head and looked up
at his hostess with his straight, honest glance the good impression he
had made was visibly enhanced. Mrs. Groome gave him the warm and
gracious smile that only her intimate friends and paid inferiors had ever
seen.
"The young men of to-day are a great disappointment to me," she
observed.

"Oh, they are all right, I guess. Most of the men that go about have rich
fathers--or near-rich ones. I wish I had one myself."
"And you would be as dissipated as the rest, I presume."
"No, I have no inclinations that way. But a man gets a better start in life.
And a man's a nonentity without money."
"Not if he has family."
"My family is good--in Utica. But that is of no use to me here."
"But your family is good?"
"Oh, yes, it goes 'way back. There is a family mansion in Utica that is
over two hundred years old. But when the business district swamped
that part of the old town it was sold, and what it brought was divided
among six. My father came out here but did not make much of a
success of himself, so that he and my mother might as well have been
on the Fiji Islands for all the notice society took of them."
He spoke with some bitterness, and Mrs. Groome, to whom dwelling
beyond the outer gates of San Francisco's elect was the ultimate tragedy,
responded sympathetically.
"Society here is not what it used to be, and no doubt is only too glad to
welcome presentable young men. I infer that you have not found it
difficult."
"Oh, I dance well, and my employer's son, Bob Cheever, took me in.