Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-16
CHAPTER VII.

Paris had been for some years of travel
Miss Bleeckers favorite saying. Helen.
who had no great love for the place from
her chaperons point of View, simply acqui-
esced when told 1t was too early to go
south. She begged Miss Blocker to go on
with her own routine. Mornings in the
shops were followed by luncheons with old
friends among the American residents,
where, after luxurious eating and drinking
of light wines, the women sat for hours
rooted upon down couches, propped by
silken cushions, exchanging hearsays of
stupendous gossip about their common &C
quaintances. Upon Miss Bleecker's return
from one of these intimate entertainments,
Helens views of human nature were low
cred for days to come
In the afternoon Miss Blocker generally
drove out with her charge, or left cards
upon people who would have resented her
getting in as earnestly as she. In her
smart wrap and voluminous furS, with her
plumed hat and dotted VEIL the chaperon
justly f1attered herself that some of the
glances bestowed upon their victoria in the
Bots and. along the Champs Elysees were
a late plum fallen to her share. In Central
Park, at home and in Fifth avenue, every
one knew it was only the same old Sally
Blocker in new French hat. Miss
Blocker had heard 1t suggested that one
must come abroad to find proper defer
ence paid to years of maturity, which
secretly was not what she desired. Her
taste was neither for the cold-blOOded push
ing to the wall of her generation by young
Americans. nor yet the reverent hand
kissing of the ancient, observable in high
life abroad. Since her morals were above
reproach, all she really asked was recog-
milton by the public of her successful Illus
trations of the methods of Paquin and AL
phonSine.
There We're always teas to drop in for.
after the drives, at the cosmopolitan re-
Col, h Pu "a
mayer, or in private dwellings. In Paris,
the division of time between five and seven
in the afternoon has become as important
for the achievement of social ldling OF
both sexes as in London. i is in New York
where the tea-drinking habit Is a graft
among the men, and to the women an in
termittent sacrifice to fashions shrine
Miss Blocker was OF the sort whom the
steam Of the tea kettle fnebriates well
as cheers. She could better exist without
her evening prisons than her cup of tea
between four and five.
When the ladies returned to their hotel.
there was barely time to dress for dinner or
the play. Miss Bleeckers dinner list in
Paris was larger than in New YORK, where
Sally Blocker was beginning to be VleuX
jeu. Abroad, she was welcomed by the
translated Americans living in various cap
itals, who were sure of hearing from her
the few things about the private lives of
their friends at home that had not got into
their newspapers. Lastly, but decidedly
not least, she had had the wisdom to per-
feet herself in bridge, which Helen de-
tested in common with all games of cards.
Whenever Miss Carstairs elected to go of
with friends of her own to dine and pass
the evening" and her young lady put on
tea gown and ordered a plate OF soup and
a wing of chicken in their own salon, the
dress. largely bespangled with a dog-col-
lar Of excellent initiated pearls around the
doubtful portion of her throat beneath the
chin with her hair admirably groomed and
<10y mil vTp ri in har
best evening manner and longest gloves, old
Sally would run down stairs nimbly to the
fiacre that was to take her to her earthly
paradise of bridge! Or else in company
smoked cigarettes eternally, wore low scar
let gowns and rarely dined at home, she
would go on from place to place, exhila-
rated beyond fatigue. whispering inwardly
to herself there was nothing like this at her
home across the sea-
Helen would have been woefully tired of
this life had she not possessed the re-
sources of a rational cultir ated woman, and
the ability to extract the real kernel of
Partisan life, in addition to the acquaint-
ance of few clever people with whom she
could fraternize in her own way. After all,
as well Paris as elsewhere for the living
down of a great clutching emotion such as
her brief passion for John Glynn She had
ben spared hearing Posey Winstanley talk
about him as her possession, since the Win
stanleys had quilted Paris early in De-
cember, just before their own arrival there.
She had heard in various ways how old
Herbert had taken her advice literally, and
Of their liberal nation. With astonishing
rapidity, the fame of the stunning young
southern beauty had been bruited abroad.
It was related that a semi-royal parsonage
who had seen her going up the staircase
Of her hotel had addressed to her father a
proposal for her hand, which had been re-
fused by the wise old gentleman without
conveying the fact to his daughter. 1t
was known that she had been taken up
by the best people in Cannes. A little
breeze of laudation concerning her was
forever blowing where gossips congregate
In le monde GU pon s'amuse. In two ex-
pressive words. Miss Winstanley had ar
rivedI'
Helen used to wonder most how thisAr
acted upon John Glynn. She pictured his
amaxement at finding the Cinderella he
had wooed had turned Ito princess In
glass slippers. But as tn. Il the sort Of
shock to which most sensible men become
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