intolerably did it spell humiliation.

Even the oldest son, prosperous, well-established manufacturer that he
was, could not recall without a shudder his first dinner-party. A branch
of the Hollisters had moved next door to the Emerys and, to Mrs. Emery's
great satisfaction, an easy neighborly acquaintance had sprung up
between the two families. Secure in this familiarity, and not
distinguishing the immense difference between a chance invitation to
drop in to dinner and a formal invitation to dine, the young
business-man had almost forgotten the date for which he had been bidden.
Remembering it with a start, he had gone straight from his office to the
house of his hosts, supposing that he would be able, as he had done many
times before, to wash his face and hands in the bath-room and brush his
hair in the room of the son of the house.

The sight of a black man in evening dress, who opened the door to him
instead of the usual maid, sent a vague apprehension through his
preoccupied mind, but it was not until he found himself in the room set
apart for the masculine guests and saw everyone arrayed in
"swallow-tails," as he thought of them, that he realized what he had
done. The emotion of the moment was one that made a mark on his life.

He had an instant's wild notion of making some excuse to go home and
dress, for his plight was by no means due to necessity. He had a correct
outfit of evening clothes, bought at the urgent command of his mother,
which he had worn several times at public dinners given by the city
Board of Trade and once at a dancing party at the home of the head of
his firm. However, the hard sense which made him successful in his
business kept him from a final absurdity now. He had been seen, and he
decided grimly that he would be, on the whole, a shade more laughable if
he appeared later in a changed costume.

He was twenty-one years old at that time; he considered himself a man
grown. He had been in business for five years and his foot was already
set firmly on the ladder of commercial success on which he was to mount
high, but not for nothing had he felt about him all his life the
inextinguishable desire of his family to outgrow rusticity. He chided
himself for unmanly pettiness, but the fact remained that throughout the
interminable evening the sight of his gray striped trousers or colored
cuffs affected him to a chagrin that was like a wave of physical nausea.
Four years later he had married a han