Book I
1. Chapter I.
(continued)
He did not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland
Archer to be a simpleton. He meant her (thanks to his
enlightening companionship) to develop a social tact
and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with
the most popular married women of the "younger set,"
in which it was the recognised custom to attract masculine
homage while playfully discouraging it. If he had
probed to the bottom of his vanity (as he sometimes
nearly did) he would have found there the wish that his
wife should be as worldly-wise and as eager to please
as the married lady whose charms had held his fancy
through two mildly agitated years; without, of course,
any hint of the frailty which had so nearly marred that
unhappy being's life, and had disarranged his own
plans for a whole winter.
How this miracle of fire and ice was to be created,
and to sustain itself in a harsh world, he had never
taken the time to think out; but he was content to hold
his view without analysing it, since he knew it was that
of all the carefully-brushed, white-waistcoated, button-hole-flowered
gentlemen who succeeded each other in
the club box, exchanged friendly greetings with him,
and turned their opera-glasses critically on the circle of
ladies who were the product of the system. In matters
intellectual and artistic Newland Archer felt himself
distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old
New York gentility; he had probably read more, thought
more, and even seen a good deal more of the world,
than any other man of the number. Singly they betrayed
their inferiority; but grouped together they represented
"New York," and the habit of masculine solidarity
made him accept their doctrine on all the issues called
moral. He instinctively felt that in this respect it would
be troublesome--and also rather bad form--to strike
out for himself.
"Well--upon my soul!" exclaimed Lawrence Lefferts,
turning his opera-glass abruptly away from the stage.
Lawrence Lefferts was, on the whole, the foremost
authority on "form" in New York. He had probably
devoted more time than any one else to the study of
this intricate and fascinating question; but study alone
could not account for his complete and easy competence.
One had only to look at him, from the slant of
his bald forehead and the curve of his beautiful fair
moustache to the long patent-leather feet at the other
end of his lean and elegant person, to feel that the
knowledge of "form" must be congenital in any one
who knew how to wear such good clothes so carelessly
and carry such height with so much lounging grace. As
a young admirer had once said of him: "If anybody can
tell a fellow just when to wear a black tie with evening
clothes and when not to, it's Larry Lefferts." And on
the question of pumps versus patent-leather "Oxfords"
his authority had never been disputed.
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