interesting
had been said in the general talk, and little that was sincere. No topic
had been explored, no argument taken to a finish. No wit worth
mentioning had glinted. But everybody had behaved very well, and had
demonstrated that he or she was familiar with the usages of society and
with aspects of existence with which it was proper to be familiar. And
everybody--even Mr. Enwright--thanked Mrs. John most heartily for her
quite delightful luncheon; Mrs. John insisted warmly on her own pleasure
and her appreciation of her guests' extreme good nature in troubling to
come, and she was beyond question joyously triumphant. And George,
relieved, thought, as he tried to rival the rest in gratitude to Mrs.
John:

"What was it all about? What did they all come for? _I_ came because she
made me. But why did the others come?"

The lunch had passed like a mild nightmare, and he felt as though, with
the inconsequence of dream-people, these people had gone away without
having accomplished some essential act which had been the object of
their gathering.

IV

When George came out of the front door, he beheld Miss Ingram on the
kerb, in the act of getting into a very rich fur coat. A chauffeur, in a
very rich livery, was deferentially helping her. Behind them stretched a
long, open motor-car. This car, existing as it did at a time when the
public acutely felt that automobiles splashed respectable foot-farers
with arrogant mud and rendered unbearable the lives of the humble in
village streets, was of the immodest kind described, abusively, as
'powerful and luxurious.' The car of course drew attention, because it
had yet occurred to but few of anybody's friends that they might
themselves possess even a modest car, much less an immodest one. George
had not hitherto personally known a single motor-car owner.

But what struck him even more than the car was the fur coat, and the
haughty and fastidious manner in which Miss Ingram accepted it from the
chauffeur, and the disdainful, accustomed way in which she wore it--as
though it were a cheap rag--when once it was on her back. In her
gestures he glimpsed a new world. He had been secretly scorning the
affairs of the luncheon and all that it implied, and he had been
secretly scorning himself for his pitiful lack of brilliancy at the
luncheon. These two somewhat contradictory sentiments were suddenly
shrivelled in the fire of his ambition which had flared up anew at
contact with a