Other women did it who were fashionable and rich, as Van Loo had pointed
out to her. Other fashionable women also gambled in stocks, and had
their private broker in a "Charley" or a "Jack." Why should not Mrs.
Barker have business with a "Paul" Van Loo, particularly as this fast
craze permitted secret meetings?--for business of this kind could not be
conducted in public, and permitted the fair gambler to call at private
offices without fear and without reproach. Mrs. Barker's vanity, Mrs.
Barker's love of ceremony and form, Mrs. Barker's snobbishness, were
flattered by the attentions of this polished gentleman with a foreign
name, which even had the flavor of nobility, who never picked up her fan
and handed it to her without bowing, and always rose when she entered
the room. Mrs. Barker's scant schoolgirl knowledge was touched by this
gentleman, who spoke French fluently, and delicately explained to her
the libretto of a risky opera bouffe. And now she had finally yielded
to a meeting out of San Francisco--and an ostensible visit--still as a
speculator--to one or two mining districts--with HER BROKER. This
was the boldest of her steps--an original idea of the fashionable Van
Loo--which, no doubt, in time would become a craze, too. But it was a
long step--and there was a streak of rustic decorum in Mrs. Barker's
nature--the instinct that made Kitty Carter keep a perfectly secluded
and distinct sitting-room in the days when she served her father's
guests--that now had impelled her to make it a proviso that the first
step of her journey should be from her old home in her father's hotel.
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