street and public conveyances alike are a perpetual menace to one's best
petticoats, so in a few moments we were on our way uptown.

We did not tell Miss Lavinia where we were going until we were almost
there, and she was quite upset, as dining at the two or three hotels and
other places affected by the Whirlpoolers implies a careful and special
toilet to run the gantlet of society reporters, for every one is somebody
in one sense, though in another "nobody is really any one."

She was reassured, however, the moment that she drew her high-backed oak
chair up to the table that Evan had reserved in a little alcove near the
fireplace. Before the oysters arrived, and Martin Cortright appeared to
fill the fourth seat, she had completely relaxed, and was beaming at the
brass jugs and pottery beakers ranged along a shelf above the dark
wainscot, and at the general company, while the warmth from the fire logs
gave her really a very pretty colour, and she began to question Martin as
to who all these people, indicating the rapidly filling-up tables, were.
But Martin gazed serenely about and confessed he did not know.

The people came singly, or in twos and threes, men and women together or
alone, a fact at which Miss Lavinia greatly marvelled. Greetings were
exchanged, and there was much visiting from table to table, as if the
footing was that of a private house.

"Nice-looking people," said Miss Lavinia, meditatively scrutinizing the
room through her lorgnette without a trace of snobbery in her voice or
attitude, yet I was aware that she was mentally drawing herself apart.
"Some of them quite unusual, but there is not a face here that I ever saw
in society. Are they members of the Club? Where do they come from? Where
do they live?"

Evan's lips shut together a moment before he answered, and I saw a
certain steely gleam in his eye that I always regarded as a danger
signal.

"Perhaps they might ask the same questions about you," he answered;
"though they are not likely to, their world is so much broader. They are
men and women chiefly having an inspiration, an art or craft, or some
vital reason for living besides the mere fact that it has become a habit.
They are none of them rich enough to be disagreeable or feel that they
own the right to trample on their fellows. They all live either in or
near New York, as best suits their means, vocations, and temperaments.
Men and women together, they represent, as well as a gathering