Her Infinite Variety by Louis Auchincloss, Louis S. Auchincloss Read Free Book Online

Hoyt!" she pleaded. And then she could only gasp when she heard herself add: "I'll ask Mrs. Atkins for dinner!" The laugh that she managed to utter was meant to be disarming.
    It was not, and she knew at once that she had made the mistake of her life. One could
do
such things; one could never mention them. As she watched the expression of faint surprise that she had evoked on Mr. Hoyt's disciplined features fade into the blank wall that would define permanently the barrier between them—a barrier that had existed from the beginning had she only cared to look—she realized that she had been fool enough to think she could act without the only weapons, charm and subtlety, that a woman could use against Hamilton Hoyt.
    "You may ask whom you wish to dinner, Clara" was his cool response. "It is hardly my function to suggest additions to your guest list."
    Clara saw no need to mention her gaffe to Trevor when he came home. She was sure his father never would. He showed no great surprise on learning of the paternal veto of her project, nor did he find it of much importance. He pointed out that their friends the Clarksons in nearby Locust Valley were converting a windmill into a weekend getaway and might be glad (since he was in advertising) to be the subject of a piece in
Style.
And when Clara informed him that she was thinking anyway of quitting the magazine, he immediately exclaimed that he hoped she was clearing her calendar for a second baby! She offered neither encouragement nor confirmation of this hope.
    Polly on the other hand was much distressed at the idea of losing her fellow worker. Over lunch the following Monday she protested vigorously.
    "You don't have to leave over a little thing like a cancelled article! That happens all the time. Mrs. Byrd will understand."
    "It's not that. I'm not so petty. It's rather that I've just been made to realize how extremely unimportant I am. Only a bit of fluff, really. A minor if decorative part of the decor of the lives of the Hoyts. I think I need some time to think it over. To find out just where I'm going."
    Mrs. Byrd accepted her resignation gracefully, believing it was for family reasons, and expressed the hope that Clara would return to the job in due time, and Clara resumed the idle life of the young society matron. But she now observed the world in which she lightly moved with a journalist's eye. She had seen what it had tried to make of her. What in turn might she make of it? What would she be in another twenty-five years, as Mrs. Trevor Hoyt? She turned her scrutinizing gaze on her mother-in-law and on the latter's friends and began to make notes in a journal.
    "They are apt to be large and largely outspoken, a bit on the bossy side, realistic, down-to-earth (as they conceive earth), good-humored, even hearty, more interested in each other than in men (who consist largely of husbands and sons). Many of them, indeed, seem almost to have forgotten that they
are
women, disdaining what they term feminine wiles and allures, and they wear their often splendid jewels more like adorned heathen idols than enticing females. I heard Mrs. Hoyt, confronted with the luscious rump of a Renoir nude at a benefit art show, announce laughingly to a group that included her husband: 'This is more Hamilton's department than mine!' These women are widely supposed to rule a society that is sometimes dubbed a matriarchy. But do they really? Even when the money is their own—and it very often is—they never use its power in business or politics. They hardly know a stock from a bond. All that is left to the men who are glad to hand over to them the home—and all that that name implies—in return. Mrs. Hoyt's birth and fortune were invaluable aids in her husband's rise; when he had them he had all he really needed of her."
    Clara also revived her interest in the social forces that were changing the old financial hierarchies. She had always been in favor of the economic revolution