"It isn't altogether the rich people's fault," said Margaret; and she
spoke impartially, too. "I don't believe that the literary men and the
artists would like a salon that descended to them. Madame Geoffrin, you
know, was very plebeian; her husband was a business man of some sort."
"He would have been a howling swell in New York," said Beaton, still
impartially.
Wetmore came up to their corner, with a scroll of bread and butter in one
hand and a cup of tea in the other. Large and fat, and clean-shaven, he
looked like a monk in evening dress.
"We were talking about salons," said Margaret.
"Why don't you open a salon yourself?" asked Wetmore, breathing thickly
from the anxiety of getting through the crowd without spilling his tea.
"Like poor Lady Barberina Lemon?" said the girl, with a laugh. "What a
good story! That idea of a woman who couldn't be interested in any of the
arts because she was socially and traditionally the material of them! We
can, never reach that height of nonchalance in this country."
"Not if we tried seriously?" suggested the painter. "I've an idea that if
the Americans ever gave their minds to that sort of thing, they could
take the palm--or the cake, as Beaton here would say--just as they do in
everything else.
Pages:
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663