What a name—Launa! reflected Lavinia after their departure. What a fatality there is in our annexing the Colonies! Still, there is money behind the girl, and she is young.
By which reflection we may infer that Mrs. Carden thought of her son in connection with the money and Launa.
“You call her a woman, daddy; now I call her a fossil,” said Launa. “She is not the sort of woman friend I need. I want a living woman—not one who has existed on husks until she withers everyone who goes near her.”
“She is an imitation. Show me some one who is brave—who has or knows life.”
“Would you like Mrs. Phillips to come and see you? She is Sir John Blomfield’s daughter, a widow and young. She wants to know you.”
“I am doubtful, not whether she will like me,” with sublime conceit, “but whether I shall like her.”
His daughter amused him with her odd ideas.
However, when Mrs. Phillips did come, Launa approved of her.
All this time Launa was learning. She was filled with a desire to know and see more; people and life were so interesting. It was like a new play. She noticed how differently her father, herself, and the others were affected by it, and the noise was soothing, even at times deadening.
Launa found Mrs. Phillips entertaining. She explained some of the parts in this vast human drama. She found Miss Archer absurdly young in many of her notions, and absurdly old in others.
“I want to see everything,” said Launa, “and to live myself. It is terrible to feel oneself growing old. It will soon be over, and I haven’t done what I meant to do.”
“I should like,” said Launa, “to be happy.”
“I want to play a little first, and then—to make the world a little brighter for someone.”
“If I were you, I would simply play myself and leave the others alone. Playing is real and not difficult. Once you begin to mix other people in your life, with your or their happiness depending on you, you will probably be very miserable.”
The admiration of one woman for another is sincere when it is felt when with her, and not merely expressed to a man.
Mrs. Phillips admired Launa for her youth, for her length of limb, and for her slight, graceful body and her warm brown skin. Launa’s mind was attractive. She made friends quickly; she seemed very adaptable; everyone interested her. Some men adored her as they had done at Musquodobit. To others, with a taste for sensuality, she was an indefinite slight girl, while to the few she was wholly desirable—madly desirable. Of course to the crowd she was just a girl.