e of the city's greatest hotels--and also slum
tenements, and brothels and dives in the Tenderloin. They did not even
have to know what they owned; they did not have to know anything, or do
anything--they lived in their palaces, at home or abroad, and in their
offices in the city the great rent-gathering machine ground on.

Eldridge Devon's occupation was playing with his country-place and his
automobiles. He had recently sold all his horses, and turned his
stables into a garage equipped with a score or so of cars; he was
always getting a new one, and discussing its merits. As to Hudson
Cliff, the estate, he had conceived the brilliant idea of establishing
a gentleman's country-place which should be self-supporting--that is to
say, which should furnish the luxuries and necessities of its owner's
table for no more than it would have cost to buy them. Considering the
prices usually paid, this was no astonishing feat, but Devon took a
child's delight in it; he showed Montague his greenhouses, filled with
rare flowers and fruits, and his model dairy, with marble stables and
nickel plumbing, and attendants in white uniforms and rubber gloves. He
was a short and very stout gentleman with red cheeks, and his
conversation was not brilliant.

To Hudson Cliff came many of Montague's earlier acquaintances, and
others whom he had not met before. They amused themselves in all the
ways with which-he had become familiar at house-parties; likewise on
Christmas Eve there were festivities for the children, and on Christmas
night a costume ball, very beautiful and stately. Many came from New
York to attend this, and others from the neighbourhood; and in
returning calls, Montague saw others of these hill-top mansions.

Also, and most important of all, they played bridge--as they had played
at every function which he had attended so far. Here Mrs. Winnie, who
had rather taken him up, and threatened to supplant Oliver as his
social guide and chaperon, insisted that no more excuses would be
accepted; and so for two mornings he sat with her in one of the
sun-parlours, and diligently put his mind upon the game. As he proved
an apt pupil, he was then advised that he might take a trial plunge.

And so Montague came into touch with a new social phenomenon; perhaps
on the whole the most significant and soul-disturbing phenomenon which
Society had exhibited to him. He had just had the experience of getting
a great deal of money without earning it