When Catalina arrived, after lingering for a fortnight in Boston with a friend she had made on the train, she liked him at once, unjustly despised Mrs. Moulton, who was the best of wives and copied her husband’s manuscripts, hated Jane, and recognized in Lydia a human being in whom one could find a reasonable amount of companionship, in spite of the magnetism of the mirror—or even the polished surface of a panel—for her complacent eyes. Lydia was innocently vain, and, being the beauty of the family, believed herself to be very beautiful indeed. She always made a smart appearance, and was frankly desirous of admiration. Like many family beauties, she had a strong will and was reasonably clever. When the first opportunity to go to Europe arrived she had reached what she called a critical point in her life. She confided to Catalina that she was becoming morbidly tired of mere existence and hated the sight of every literary man she knew, particularly the young ones.
“Of course, they are more or less the respectable hangers-on that give us the benefit of their society,” she said, gloomily. “Those that scurry about writing little stories for the magazines and weekly papers—it seems to me a real man might find something better to do. We know all the big ones, but they are too busy to come out here often, and father sees them at the Century and Authors’ clubs, anyhow. We hardly know a man who isn’t a publisher, an editor, or a writer of something or other—perhaps an occasional artist. For my part, I’d give my immortal soul to be one of those lucky girls that go to Mrs. Astor’s parties; that’s my idea of life. If a millionaire would only fall in love with me—or any old romance, for that matter!”
“Have you never been in love?” asked Catalina, afraid of the sound of her own voice but deeply interested.
“Not the least little bit, more is the pity. I wouldn’t mind even being heart-broken for a while.”
It was this frankness that endeared her to Catalina. “Jane is third rate, and tries to conceal the fact from herself and others by an affectation of such of the literary galaxy as make the least appeal to the popular taste, and cousin Lyman is no critic,” she informed herself three days after her arrival. “Cousin Miranda is just one of those American women who are invalids for no reason but because they want to be, and I suppose even Lydia would get on my nerves in time. Thank Heaven, when they do I can leave at a moment’s notice.”