r into their
houses half unwillingly. Her speech was not often kindly, and there was
an element of defiance even in her quietness, for her unmistakable
social ease was distinctly negative. Molly was rich and dressed well,
and Mrs. Delaport Green was a very clever woman, whose blunders were
rare and whose pet vice was not unfashionable. There was nothing in this
life to soften and ripen the best side of Molly. But Edmund drew out
whatever she had in her that was gentle and kindly.

It does not need the experience of many London seasons in order to
realise that it is a condition of things in which many of the faculties
of our nature are suspended. It is not as a Puritan moralist might put
it, that the atmosphere of a whirlpool of carnal vice chokes higher
things, for the amusements may be perfectly innocent. Only for a time
the people who are engaged in them don't happen to think, or to pity, or
to pray, or to condemn, or often, I believe, to love, though it may
seem absurd to say so. It may, therefore, be called a rest cure for
aspirations and higher ambitions and anxieties and all the nobler
discontents. To Molly it was youth and fun and brightness and
forgetfulness. There was no leisure to be morbid, no occasion to be
bitter or combative. The game of life was too bright and smooth, above
all too incessant not to suffice.

Mrs. Delaport Green might be outside the circle in which Lady
Groombridge disported herself with more dignity than gaiety, but she had
the _entree_ to some houses almost as good, if not as exclusive, and she
had also a large number of acquaintances who entertained systematically
and extravagantly. That the Delaport Greens were very rich, or lived as
if they were very rich, had from the first surprised the "paying guest."
Lately it had become evident to her that if Adela had not been addicted
to cards, Molly would never have been established in her house. She had
found out by now that Mr. Delaport Green was a man of very good repute
in the financial world as being distinctly successful on the Stock
Exchange. He struck Molly as a sturdy type of Englishman, rather
determined on complete independence, and liking to pay his way in a
large free fashion. She rather wondered at his having consented to the
plan of the "paying guest," but he seemed quite genial when he came
across her and inquired with sympathy after her amusements, and
evidently wished that she should enjoy herself.

Many girls whose positi