CHAPTER XIII

A SCENE BENEATH THE HEMLOCKS


Roger sat out on the dusky piazza of the hotel, looking into the
large parlor through open windows which came to the floor, bent on
making the most of such glimpses as he could obtain of the world to
which he felt that Mildred belonged by right. He saw clearly that
she would appear well and at home amid such surroundings. A young
and elegantly dressed woman crossed the wide apartment, and he
muttered, "Your carriage is very fine and fashionable, no doubt, but
Miss Jocelyn would have added grace and nature to your regulation
gait." He watched the groups at the card-tables with a curious
interest, and the bobbing heads of gossiping dowagers and matrons;
he compared the remarkable "make up," as he phrased it, of some
of them with the unredeemed plainness of his mother's Sunday gown.
"Neither the one nor the other is in good taste," he thought. "Mrs.
Jocelyn dresses as I intend my mother shall some day." He coolly
criticised a score or more of young men and women who were chatting,
promenading, flitting through the open windows out upon the piazza
and back again into the light, as a small stringed orchestra
struck into a lively galop or the latest waltz. He saw a general
mustering of the younger guests, even down to the boys and girls,
for the lancers, and followed one and another that caught his eye
through the mazy intricacies, making little gestures of disgust at
those who seemed outre and peculiar in manner and appearance, and
regarding with the closest observation such as exhibited a happy
mean between a certain rusticity and awkwardness with which he was