Call on the Cornerlys! Would they do that? Were they ready to stand by their John to that tune? A hotel would be nothing; you could call on anybody at a hotel, if you had to; but here would be a demarche indeed! Yet, nevertheless, I felt quite certain that, if Hortense, though the Cornerlys’ guest, was also the guaranteed fiancee of John Mayrant, the old ladies would come up to the scratch, hate and loathe it as they might, and undoubtedly would: they could be trusted to do the right thing.
I told Beverly how glad I was that he would meet Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. “The rest of your party, my friend,” I said, “are not very likely to.” And I generalized to him briefly upon the town of Kings Port. “Supposing I take you to call upon Mrs. St. Michael when I come back this afternoon?” I suggested.
Beverly thought it over, and then shook his head. “Wouldn’t do, old man. If these people are particular and know, as you say they do, hadn’t I better leave the letter with my card, and then wait till she sends some word?”
He was right, as he always was, unerringly. Consorting with all the Charleys, and the Bohms, and the Cohns, and the Kitties hadn’t taken the fine edge from Beverly’s good inheritance and good bringing up; his instinct had survived his scruples, making of him an agile and charming cynic, whom you could trust to see the right thing always, and never do it unless it was absolutely necessary; he would marry any amount of Kitties for their money, and always know that beside his mother and sisters they were as dirt; and he would see to it that his children took after their father, went to school in England for a good accent and enunciation, as he had done, went to college in America for the sake of belonging in their own country, as he had done, and married as many fortunes, and had as few divorces, as possible.
“Who was that girl on the bridge?” he now inquired as we reached the steps of the post-office; and when I had told him again, because he had asked me about Eliza La Heu at the time, “She’s the real thing,” he commented. “Quite extraordinary, you know, her dignity, when poor old awful Charley was messing everything--he’s so used to mere money, you know, that half the time he forgets people are not dollars, and you have to kick him to remind him--yes, quite perfect dignity. Gad, it took a lady to climb up and sit by that ragged old darky and take her dead dog away in the cart! The cart and the darky only made her look what she was all the more. Poor Kitty couldn’t do that--she’d look like a chambermaid! Well, old man, see you again.”