Carmella Commands
Mrs. Barrington had been—well, perhaps she had been a trifle overgracious in her question. Carmella, by instinct as fundamental as the first step in civilization, was perhaps a trifle overcasual in reply.
Mrs. Barrington, as it happened, did not notice the very slight emphasis.
“Very well, thank you, Carmella, ” she said.
“That’s good,” said Carmella, still struggling with her social formulas. “It’s been a beautiful day, hasn’t it?”
“Y-e-e-e-s!” admitted Mrs. Barrington, beginning to be more observant. “A very beautiful day,” she added, after a pause that may have denoted a revised mental measurement.
And then, for a moment, Mrs. Barrington and Miss Carmella Coletta forgot the rules. They simply stood and stared.
Mrs. Barrington, daughter of all the daughters of all the necessary ancestors in American history.
Carmella Coletta, daughter of an immigrant who at that moment could not talk English, and was swearing at a shoveler in rich Italian. Yet, perhaps, descendant of kings who ruled when Nero was merely a maternal hope. Yet, also perhaps, not.
The difference was chiefly that Mrs. Barrington knew and cared, whereas Carmella did not know and did not care. She would not even have known what to care about had she been told to sit still for five minutes and worry.
[16]
