Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937 / 2008-06-21 00:00:00

EBOOK THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY ***


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THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY
by EDITH WHARTON

1913


THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY


I
"Undine Spragg--how can you?" her mother wailed, raising a
prematurely-wrinkled hand heavy with rings to defend the note which a
languid "bell-boy" had just brought in.
But her defence was as feeble as her protest, and she continued to
smile on her visitor while Miss Spragg, with a turn of her quick young
fingers, possessed herself of the missive and withdrew to the window to
read it.
"I guess it's meant for me," she merely threw over her shoulder at her
mother.
"Did you EVER, Mrs. Heeny?" Mrs. Spragg murmured with deprecating pride.
Mrs. Heeny, a stout professional-looking person in a waterproof, her
rusty veil thrown back, and a shabby alligator bag at her feet, followed
the mother's glance with good-humoured approval.
"I never met with a lovelier form," she agreed, answering the spirit
rather than the letter of her hostess's enquiry.
Mrs. Spragg and her visitor were enthroned in two heavy gilt armchairs
in one of the private drawing-rooms of the Hotel Stentorian. The Spragg
rooms were known as one of the Looey suites, and the drawing-room walls,
above their wainscoting of highly-varnished mahogany, were hung with
salmon-pink damask and adorned with oval portraits of Marie Antoinette
and the Princess de Lamballe.
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