re never
any questions raised about duties. The really serious thought in Carmen's
mind was that perhaps after all a woman had no real freedom until she was
married. And she began to be interested in Margaret's enjoyment of the
world.

It was not, after all, a new world, only newly arranged, like another
scene in the same play. The actors, who came and went, were for the most
part the acquaintances of the Washington winter, and the callers and
diners and opera-goers and charity managers of the city. In these days
Margaret was quite at home with the old set: the British Minister, the
Belgian, the French, the Spanish, the Mexican, the German, and the
Italian, with their families and attaches--nothing was wanting, not even
the Chinese mandarin, who had rooms at the hotel, going about everywhere
in the conscientious discharge of his duties as ambassador to American
society, a great favorite on account of his silk apparel, which
gave him the appearance of a clumsy woman, and the everlasting,
three-thousand-year-old smile on his broad face, punctiliously leaving in
every house a big flaring red piece of paper which the ladies pinned up
for a decoration; a picture of helpless, childlike enjoyment, and almost
independent of the interpreter who followed him about, when he had
learned, upon being introduced to a lady, or taking a cup of tea, to say
"good-by" as distinctly as an articulating machine; a truly learned man,
setting an example of civility and perfect self-possession, but keenly
observant of the oddities of the social life to which his missionary
government had accredited him. One would like to have heard the comments
of the minister and his suite upon our manners; but perhaps they were too
polite to make any even in their seclusion. Certain it is that no one
ever heard any of the legation express any opinion but the most suave and
flattering.

And yet they must have been amazed at the activity of this season of
repose, the endurance of American women who rode to the fox meets, were
excited spectators of the polo, played lawn-tennis, were incessantly
dining and calling, and sat through long dinners served with the
formality and dullness and the swarms of liveried attendants of a royal
feast. And they could not but admire the young men, who did not care for
politics or any business beyond the chances of the stock exchange, but
who expended an immense amount of energy in the dangerous polo contests,
in riding at fences