Her mentality was of the order which is capable of making
discoveries concerning itself as well as concerning others. She had
never thought of this view of the matter before, but it was quite true.
To passionate young patriots such as herself at least, that portion of
the map covered by the United States was America. She suddenly saw also
that to her New York had been America. Fifth Avenue Broadway, Central
Park, even Tiffany's had been "America." She laughed and reddened a
shade as she put the atlas aside having recorded a new idea. She had
found out that it was not only Europeans who were local, which was a
discovery of some importance to her fervid youth.
Because she thought so often of Rosalie, her attention was, during the
passing years, naturally attracted by the many things she heard of such
marriages as were made by Americans with men of other countries than
their own. She discovered that notwithstanding certain commercial
views of matrimony, all foreigners who united themselves with American
heiresses were not the entire brutes primitive prejudice might lead
one to imagine. There were rather one-sided alliances which proved
themselves far from happy. The Cousin Gaston, for instance, brought home
a bride whose fortune rebuilt and refurnished his dilapidated chateau
and who ended by making of him a well-behaved and cheery country
gentleman not at all to be despised in his amiable, if light-minded good
nature and good spirits.
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