ly. "You have said so with your lips before,
now you mean it. You are your old handsome self to-night."

Apart from the charm of Nan's presence Stuart found the dinner itself a
stupid affair, so solemnly stupid it at last became funny. In all the
magnificently dressed crowd he looked in vain for a man or woman of
real intellectual distinction. He saw only money, money, money!

There was one exception--the titled degenerates from the Old World,
hovering around the richest and silliest women, their eyes glittering
with eager avarice for a chance at their millions. It seemed a joke
that any sane American mother could conceive the idea of selling her
daughter to these wretches in exchange for the empty sham of a
worm-eaten dishonoured title. And yet it had become so common that the
drain on the national resources from this cause constitutes a menace to
our future.

In spite of the low murmurs of Nan's beautifully modulated voice in his
ears, he found his anger slowly rising, not against any one in
particular, but against the vulgar ostentation in which these people
moved and the vapid assumption of superiority with which they evidently
looked out upon the world.

But whatever might have been lacking in the wit and genius of the
guests who sat at Nan's tables, there could be no question about the
quality of the dinner set before them. When the Roman Empire was
staggering to its ruin amid the extravagancies of its corrupt emperors,
not one of them ever gave a banquet which approximated half the cost of
this. The best old Nero ever did with his flowers was to cover the
floors of his banquet hall with cut roses that his guests might crush
them beneath their feet. But flowers were cheap in sunny Italy. Nan's
orchids alone on her tables cost in Roman money a hundred thousand
sesterces, while the paintings, trees, shrubbery, water and light
effects necessary to transform the room into a miniature forest cost
five hundred thousand sesterces, or a total of thirty thousand dollars
for the decorations of the banquet hall alone.

When the feast ended at ten thirty the sun had set behind the blue
mountains, the moon risen, and hundreds of fire flies were floating
from the foliage of trees and shrubs.

Nan led the way to the ball room, where the entertainment by hired
dancers, singers, and professional entertainers began on an improvised
stage.

During this part of the programme the women and men of the banqueting
party who were