Paul Verville. Nascitur.
At a very remote period, when editorials were mostly
devoted to discussion as to whether the Democratic
Convention (shortly to be held in Chicago) would or
would not declare in favor of bi-metallism; when golf
was a novel form of recreation in America, and people
disputed how to pronounce its name, and pedestrians
still turned to stare after an automobile; when, according
to the fashion notes, “the godet skirts and
huge sleeves of the present modes” were already
doomed to extinction; when the baseball season had
just begun, and some of our people were discussing
the national game, and others the spectacular burning
of the old Pennsylvania Railway depot at Thirty-third
and Market Street in Philadelphia, and yet others
the significance of General Fitzhugh Lee’s recent
appointment as consul-general to Habana:—at
this remote time, Lichfield talked of nothing except
the Pendomer divorce case.
And Colonel Rudolph Musgrave had very narrowly escaped
being named as the co-respondent. This much,
at least, all Lichfield knew when George Pendomer—evincing
unsuspected funds of generosity—permitted
his wife to secure a divorce on the euphemistic grounds
of “desertion.” John Charteris, acting
as Rudolph Musgrave’s friend, had patched up
this arrangement; and the colonel and Mrs. Pendomer,
so rumor ran, were to be married very quietly after
a decent interval.
Remained only to deliberate whether this sop to the
conventions should be accepted as sufficient.
“At least,” as Mrs. Ashmeade sagely observed,
“we can combine vituperation with common-sense,
and remember it is not the first time a Musgrave has
figured in an entanglement of the sort. A lecherous
race! proverbial flutterers of petticoats! His
surname convicts the man unheard and almost excuses
him. All of us feel that. And, moreover,
it is not as if the idiots had committed any unpardonable
sin, for they have kept out of the newspapers.”
Her friend seemed dubious, and hazarded something
concerning “the merest sense of decency.”
“In the name of the Prophet, figs! People—I
mean the people who count in Lichfield—are
charitable enough to ignore almost any crime which
is just a matter of common knowledge. In fact,
they are mildly grateful. It gives them something
to talk about. But when detraction is printed
in the morning paper you can’t overlook it without
incurring the suspicion of being illiterate and virtueless.
That’s Lichfield.”
“But, Polly—”
“Sophist, don’t I know my Lichfield?
I know it almost as well as I know Rudolph Musgrave.
And so I prophesy that he will not marry Clarice Pendomer,
because he is inevitably tired of her by this.
He will marry money, just as all the Musgraves do.
Moreover, I prophesy that we will gabble about this
mess until we find a newer target for our stone throwing,
and be just as friendly with the participants to their
faces as we ever were. So don’t let me
hear any idiotic talk about whether or no I
am going to receive her—”
