few moments' chat
with some friends--change into evening clothes, on to Sherry's--inside
the door of the great restaurant he sees a number of people he knows.
"Hallo, you, with whom are you dining to-night?" "Why, with you."
"Glad of it." Then he sees Mr. Sherry, and finds his table to see how
many he has dining with him. A little late, but radiant in a Worth
gown and wearing black pearls, his wife arrives--it is the first time
he has seen her during the day.

"So sorry to be late, poppa, but that last rubber of bridge was such a
slow one, and I won eight dollars." "Good for you." After dinner he
sits in the back of the box; the play or the plot does not interest
him; his mind is full of more dramatic scenes--plots that, instead of
play, can be made into reality--real live characters that he could
make dance to the music of his millions. Then on to that great ball in
one of the palaces of Fifth Avenue, a palace to which architects,
painters, sculptors, have combined to raise into a dream of luxury
such as Rome never equalled.

Strolling through the picture-gallery with an old friend, she who,
though born to millions, kept fresh that perfume of womanliness which
we call charm: "You look tired to-night," said he. "No wonder; out
every night now for four months; lunches, bridge, calls, dinners,
theatres, suppers, dances, and the treadmill never stops. I sometimes
wish Tom only owned a tiny cottage, and that I had to cook his dinner
for him." "And that you might ask me to dine off pork and beans."
"You, too, look tired, my master of millions." "I am," said he, "but I
am not master of millions, it is the millions who are my
master--slave-masters with many-lashed whip that keep me hourly
toiling in their service, that never let me rest, keep me working and
fighting, and have robbed me of repose, keep a glare of limelight on
my life, and after all can buy so little, not real success (I was
beaten this week by K. in that Union-Pacific deal), not one drop of
blue blood into my veins, not one night of sound delicious sleep, not
one kiss from the lips of love."

XVI

THE WOMAN WHO WORKS IN THE CITY OF UNREST

At a quarter to seven the alarm-clock went off next her bed--how she
would have liked to sleep for another hour, or lie warm and cosy under
the clothes! The training in the habit of doing what she did not like
helped her into a little tin bath, and to dress close to the radiator,
as it was a bitterly cold morni