! Here's a woman who's bought a
great painting; she's told that it's great, but she doesn't understand
it herself--all she knows is that it cost her a hundred thousand
dollars. And now you come along, and to you it's really a painting--and
don't you see how gratifying that is to her?"

"Oliver is always telling me it's bad form to admire," said the man,
laughing.

"Yes?" said the other. "Well, don't you let that brother of yours spoil
you. There are more than enough of blase people in town--you be
yourself."

He appreciated the compliment, but added, "I'm afraid that when the
novelty is worn off, people will be tired of me."

"You'll find your place," said Mrs. Alden--"the people you like and who
like you." And she went on to explain that here he was being passed
about among a number of very different "sets," with different people
and different tastes. Society had become split up in that manner of
late--each set being jealous and contemptuous of all the other sets.
Because of the fact that they overlapped a little at the edges, it was
possible for him to meet here a great many people who never met each
other, and were even unaware of each other's existence.

And Mrs. Alden went on to set forth the difference between these
"sets"; they ran from the most exclusive down to the most "yellow,"
where they shaded off into the disreputable rich--of whom, it seemed,
there were hordes in the city. These included "sporting" and theatrical
and political people, some of whom were very rich indeed; and these
sets in turn shaded off into the criminals and the demi-monde--who
might also easily be rich. "Some day," said Mrs. Alden "you should get
my brother to tell you about all these people. He's been in politics,
you know, and he has a racing-stable."

And Mrs. Alden told him about the subtle little differences in the
conventions of these various sets of Society. There was the matter of
women smoking, for instance. All women smoked, nowadays; but some would
do it only in their own apartments, with their women friends; and some
would retire to an out-of-the-way corner to do it; while others would
smoke in their own dining-rooms, or wherever the men smoked. All agreed
however, in never smoking "in public"--that is, where they would be
seen by people not of their own set. Such, at any rate, had always been
the rule, though a few daring ones were beginning to defy even that.

Such rules were very rigid, but they were purely conven