“C. Q.”; or, In the Wireless House
worthier far than the hypocrites about her, because she at least was genuine. Her house became the center of the smart Bohemian circle the Newport and Westbury crowds, and the stragglers of London and Parisian society, of whom there are always a few in New York eagerly gobbled up to lend a cosmopolitan touch to social gatherings otherwise banal by reason of the absence of aristocratic titles. Her husband passed unnoticed, “Is there a Mr. Trevelyan?” It was quite the thing to say, with a half-knowing, half-ingenuous expression. Indeed, as a topic of conversation for “society” women, who otherwise would have conversed of servants or children, she was inexhaustible. For this reason, if for none other, her transplantation was more than justifiable.
But the lure of the scenes of her earlier triumphs came ever upon her, and each summer saw her for a few weeks in London and a month or two at Carlsbad or Biarritz. Trevelyan no longer went with her. She came and went as she chose, and with whom she chose—a mocking, tragic figure of what might have been.
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