ew hotels and theatres
opening, and food and clothing and furniture that cost twice as much as
they cost now. Not so long ago a private car was a luxury; now it's as
much a necessity as an opera-box or a private ball-room, and people who
really count have private trains. I can remember when our girls wore
pretty muslin gowns in summer, and sent them to wash; now they wear
what they call lingerie gowns, dimity en princesse, with silk
embroidery and real lace and ribbons, that cost a thousand dollars
apiece and won't wash. Years ago when I gave a dinner, I invited a
dozen friends, and my own chef cooked it and my own servants served it.
Now I have to pay my steward ten thousand a year, and nothing that I
have is good enough. I have to ask forty or fifty people, and I call in
a caterer, and he brings everything of his own, and my servants go off
and get drunk. You used to get a good dinner for ten dollars a plate,
and fifteen was something special; but now you hear of dinners that
cost a thousand a plate! And it's not enough to have beautiful flowers
on the table--you have to have 'scenery'; there must be a rural
landscape for a background, and goldfish in the finger-bowls, and five
thousand dollars' worth of Florida orchids on the table, and floral
favours of roses that cost a hundred and fifty dollars a dozen. I
attended a dinner at the Waldorf last year that had cost fifty thousand
dollars; and when I ask those people to see me, I have to give them as
good as I got. The other day I paid a thousand dollars for a
tablecloth!"

"Why do you do it?" asked Montague, abruptly.

"God knows," said the other; "I don't. I sometimes wonder myself. I
guess it's because I've nothing else to do. It's like the story they
tell about my brother--he was losing money in a gambling-place in
Saratoga, and some one said to him, 'Davy, why do you go there--don't
you know the game is crooked?' 'Of course it's crooked,' said he, 'but,
damn it, it's the only game in town!'"

"The pressure is more than anyone can stand," said Mrs. Alden, after a
moment's thought. "It's like trying to swim against a current. You have
to float, and do what every one expects you to do--your children and
your friends and your servants and your tradespeople. All the world is
in a conspiracy against you."

"It's appalling to me," said the man.

"Yes," said the other, "and there's never any end to it. You think you
know it all, but you find you really know very lit