isks of the championship which his engagement had forced
upon him.

A few days later the bolt fell.

The Lovell Mingotts had sent out cards for what was known as "a formal
dinner" (that is, three extra footmen, two dishes for each course, and
a Roman punch in the middle), and had headed their invitations with the
words "To meet the Countess Olenska," in accordance with the hospitable
American fashion, which treats strangers as if they were royalties, or
at least as their ambassadors.

The guests had been selected with a boldness and discrimination in
which the initiated recognised the firm hand of Catherine the Great.
Associated with such immemorial standbys as the Selfridge Merrys, who
were asked everywhere because they always had been, the Beauforts, on
whom there was a claim of relationship, and Mr. Sillerton Jackson and
his sister Sophy (who went wherever her brother told her to), were some
of the most fashionable and yet most irreproachable of the dominant
"young married" set; the Lawrence Leffertses, Mrs. Lefferts Rushworth
(the lovely widow), the Harry Thorleys, the Reggie Chiverses and young
Morris Dagonet and his wife (who was a van der Luyden). The company
indeed was perfectly assorted, since all the members belonged to the
little inner group of people who, during the long New York season,
disported themselves together daily and nightly with apparently
undiminished zest.

Forty-eight hours later the unbelievable had happened; every one had
refused the Mingotts' invitation except the Beauforts and old Mr.
Jackson and his sister. The intended slight was emphasised by the fact
that even the Reggie Chiverses, who were of the Mingott clan, were
among those inflicting it; and by the uniform wording of the notes, in
all of which the writers "regretted that they were unable to accept,"
without the mitigating plea of a "previous engagement" that ordinary
courtesy prescribed.

New York society was, in those days, far too small, and too scant in
its resources, for every one in it (including livery-stable-keepers,
butlers and cooks) not to know exactly on which evenings people were
free; and it was thus possible for the recipients of Mrs. Lovell
Mingott's invitations to make cruelly clear their determination not to
meet the Countess Olenska.

The blow was unexpected; but the Mingotts, as their way was, met it
gallantly. Mrs. Lovell Mingott confided the case to Mrs. Welland, who
confided it to Newland Archer;