He was one of those fortunate people who, as
the saying goes, are born with a gold spoon in the mouth. Unlike
most inheritors of great wealth, he not only spent freely but added
even more freely to the ancestral holdings. He was moneyed enough to
do as he pleased without being considered eccentric; he could even
afford to be esthetic, and to prefer Epicurus to St. Paul. He had a
highly important collection of modern paintings, and an even more
valuable one of Tanagra figurines, old Greek coins, and medieval
church plate. He had, too, the reputation of being the most gun-shy
and bullet-proof of social lions. At thirty he was a handsome,
well-groomed, rather bored personage, with sleekly-brushed blond
hair and a short mustache. He looked important, and one suspected
that he must have been at some pains to keep his waist line so
inconspicuous. For the rest, he was as really cultivated and
pleasing a pagan as one may find, and so wittily ironical he might
have been mistaken for a Frenchman.
Mrs.
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