Six months
ago I was in love with her, because I thought she was like her sisters.
I love her sisters, but she is not the least like them."

The music ceased; Lothair moved away, and he approached the duke.

"I have a favor to ask your grace," he said. "I have made up my mind
that I shall not go back to Oxford this term; would your grace do me the
great favor of presenting me at the next lev e?"

CHAPTER 21

One's life changes in a moment. Half a month ago, Lothair, without an
acquaintance, was meditating his return to Oxford. Now he seemed to know
everybody who was anybody. His table was overflowing with invitations to
all the fine houses in town. First came the routs and the balls; then,
when he had been presented to the husbands, came the dinners. His kind
friends the Duchess and Lady St. Jerome were the fairies who had worked
this sudden scene of enchantment. A single word from them, and London
was at Lothair's feet.

He liked it amazingly. He quite forgot the conclusion at which he had
arrived respecting society a year ago, drawn from his vast experience of
the single party which he had then attended. Feelings are different when
you know a great many persons, and every person is trying to please you;
above all, when there are individuals whom you want to meet, and whom,
if you do not meet, you become restless.

Town was beginning to blaze. Broughams whirled and bright barouches
glanced, troops of social cavalry cantered and caracolled in morning
rides, and the bells of prancing ponies, lashed by delicate hands,
gingled in the laughing air. There were stoppages in Bond Street,
which seems to cap the climax of civilisation, after crowded clubs and
swarming parks.

But the great event of the season was the presentation of Lady
Corisande. Truly our bright maiden of Brenthani woke and found herself
famous. There are families whom everybody praises, and families who are
treated in a different way. Either will do; all the sons and daughters
of the first succeed, all the sons and daughters of the last are
encouraged in perverseness by the prophetic determination of society.
Half a dozen married sisters, who were the delight and ornament of
their circles, in the case of Lady Corisande were good precursors of
popularity; but the world would not be content with that: they credited
her with all their charms and winning qualities, but also with something
grander and beyond comparison; and from the moment her fair