imself--the only subject in the whole world that
seemed to him thoroughly worth while. As Mildred listened and
furtively observed, it seemed to her that this tiny fool, so obviously
pleased by these coarse and insulting flatteries, could not possibly
have had the brains to amass the vast fortune he apparently possessed.
But presently she noted that behind the personality that was pleased by
this gross fawning and bootlicking there lay--lay in wait and on
guard--another personality, one that despised these guests of his,
estimating them at their true value and using them contemptuously for
the gratification of his coarse appetites. In the glimpse she caught
of that deeper and real personality, she liked it even less than she
liked the one upon the surface.

It was evidence of superior acumen that she saw even vaguely the real
Bill Siddall, the money-maker, beneath the General William Siddall, raw
and ignorant and vulgar--more vulgar in his refinement than the most
shocking bum at home and at ease in foul-smelling stew. Every man of
achievement hides beneath his surface--personality this second and real
man, who makes the fortune, discovers the secret of chemistry, fights
the battle, carries the election, paints the picture, commits the
frightful murder, evolves the divine sermon or poem or symphony. Thus,
when we meet a man of achievement, we invariably have a sense of
disappointment. "Why, that's not the man!" we exclaim. "There must be
some mistake." And it is, indeed, not the man. Him we are incapable of
seeing. We have only eyes for surfaces; and, not being doers of
extraordinary deeds, but mere plodders in the routines of existence, we
cannot believe that there is any more to another than there is to
ourselves. The pleasant or unpleasant surface for the conventional
relations of life is about all there is to us; therefore it is all
there is to human nature. Well, there's no help for it. In measuring
our fellow beings we can use only the measurements of our own selves;
we have no others, and if others are given to us we are as foozled as
one knowing only feet and inches who has a tape marked off in meters
and centimeters.

It so happened that in her social excursions Mildred had never been in
any of the numerous homes of the suddenly and vastly rich of humble
origin. She was used to--and regarded as proper and elegant--the
ordinary ostentations and crudities of the rich of conventional
society. No more th