The dinner had been unusually long and the summer evening warm. During the wait before the dancing began I must have dropped asleep in the dark corner of the piazza1 where I had installed myself, to smoke my cigar, away from the other men and their tiresome2 chatter3 of golf and racing4. Through the open window groups of women could be seen in the ball-room, and the murmur5 of their conversation floated out, mingling6 with the laughter of the men.
Suddenly, in that casual way peculiar7 to dreams, I found myself conversing8 with a solemn young Turk, standing9 in all the splendor10 of fez and stambouline beside my chair.
“Pardon, Effendi,” he was murmuring. “Is this an American ball? I was asked at nine o’clock; it is now past eleven. Is there not some mistake?”
“None,” I answered. “When a hostess puts nine o’clock on her card of invitation she expects her guests at eleven or half-past, and would be much embarrassed to be taken literally11.”
As we were speaking, our host rose. The men, reluctantly throwing away their cigars, began to enter the ball-room through the open windows. On their approach the groups of women broke up, the men joining the girls where they sat, or inviting12 them out to the lantern-lit piazza, where the couples retired13 to dim, palm-embowered corners.
“Are you sure I have not made a mistake?” asked my interlocutor, with a faint quiver of the eyelids14. “It is my intention, while travelling, to remain faithful to my harem.”
I hastened to reassure15 him and explain that he was in an exclusive and reserved society.
“Indeed,” he murmured incredulously. “When I was passing through New York last winter a lady was pointed16 out to me as the owner of marvellous jewels and vast wealth, but with absolutely no social position. My informant added that no well-born woman would receive her or her husband.
“It’s foolish, of course, but the handsome woman with the crown on sitting in the centre of that circle, looks very like the woman I mean. Am I right?”
“It’s the same lady,” I answered, wearily. “You are speaking of last year. No one could be induced to call on the couple then. Now we all go to their house, and entertain them in return.”
“They have doubtless done some noble action, or the reports about the husband have been proved false?”
“Nothing of the kind has taken place. She’s a success, and no one asks any questions! In spite of that, you are in a society where the standard of conduct is held higher than in any country of Europe, by a race of women more virtuous17, in all probability, than has yet been seen. There is not a man present,” I added, “who would presume to take, or a woman who would permit, a liberty so slight even as the resting of a youth’s arm across the back of her chair.”
While I was speaking, an invisible orchestra began to sigh out the first passionate18 bars of a waltz. A dozen couples rose, the men clasping in their arms the slender matrons, whose smiling faces sank to their partners’ shoulders. A blond mustache brushed the forehead of a girl as she swept by us to the rhythm of the music, and other cheeks seemed about to touch as couples glided19 on in unison20.
The sleepy Oriental eyes of my new acquaintance opened wide with astonishment21.
“This, you must understand,” I continued, hastily, “is quite another matter. Those people are waltzing. It is considered perfectly22 proper, when the musicians over there play certain measures, for men to take apparent liberties. Our women are infinitely23 self-respecting, and a man who put his arm around a woman (in public) while a different measure was being played, or when there was no music, would be ostracized24 from polite society.”
“I am beginning to understand,” replied the Turk. “The husbands and brothers of these women guard them very carefully. Those men I see out there in the dark are doubtless with their wives and sisters, protecting them from the advances of other men. Am I right?”
“Of course you’re not right,” I snapped out, beginning to lose my temper at his obtuseness25. “No husband would dream of talking to his wife in public, or of sitting with her in a corner. Every one would be laughing at them. Nor could a sister be induced to remain away from the ball-room with her brother. Those girls are ‘sitting out’ with young men they like, indulging in a little innocent flirtation26.”
“What is that?” he asked. “Flirtation?”
“An American custom rather difficult to explain. It may, however, be roughly defined as the art of leading a man a long way on the road to—nowhere!”
“Women flirt27 with friends or acquaintances, never with members of their family?”
“The husbands are those dejected individuals wandering aimlessly about over there like lost souls. They are mostly rich men, who, having married beautiful girls for love, wear themselves out maintaining elaborate and costly29 establishments for them. In return for his labor28 a husband, however, enjoys but little of his wife’s society, for a really fashionable woman can rarely be induced to go home until she has collapsed30 with fatigue31. In consequence, she contributes little but ‘nerves’ and temper to the household. Her sweetest smiles, like her freshest toilets, are kept for the public. The husband is the last person considered in an American household. If you ............