There then entered, somewhat to my uneasiness, the Klondike woman and
her party. Being almost the last, it will be understood that they
created no little sensation as she led them down the thronged room to
her table. She was wearing an evening gown of lustrous black with the
apparently simple lines that are so baffling to any but the expert
maker, with a black picture hat that suited her no end. I saw more
than one matron of the North Side set stiffen in her seat, while Mrs.
Belknap-Jackson and Mrs. Effie turned upon her the chilling broadside
of their lorgnons. Belknap-Jackson merely drew himself up austerely.
The three other women of her party, flutterers rather, did little but
set off their hostess. The four men were of a youngish sort, chaps in
banks, chemists' assistants, that sort of thing, who were constantly
to be seen in her train. They were especially reprobated by the
matrons of the correct set by reason of their deliberately choosing to
ally themselves with the Bohemian set.
Acutely feeling the antagonism aroused by this group, I was
momentarily discouraged in a design I had half formed of using my
undoubted influence to unite the warring social factions of Red Gap,
even as Bismarck had once brought the warring Prussian states together
in a federated Germany.
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