nch of mushes," had
disappeared forever from the scene of her defeat.

Since then Mabel had returned to New York and married a stock-broker;
and Undine's first steps in social enlightenment dated from the day when
she had met Mrs. Harry Lipscomb, and been again taken under her wing.

Harry Lipscomb had insisted on investigating the riding-master's record,
and had found that his real name was Aaronson, and that he had left
Cracow under a charge of swindling servant-girls out of their savings;
in the light of which discoveries Undine noticed for the first time that
his lips were too red and that his hair was pommaded. That was one of
the episodes that sickened her as she looked back, and made her resolve
once more to trust less to her impulses--especially in the matter of
giving away rings. In the interval, however, she felt she had learned a
good deal, especially since, by Mabel Lipscomb's advice, the Spraggs had
moved to the Stentorian, where that lady was herself established.

There was nothing of the monopolist about Mabel, and she lost no time in
making Undine free of the Stentorian group and its affiliated branches:
a society addicted to "days," and linked together by membership in
countless clubs, mundane, cultural or "earnest." Mabel took Undine to
the days, and introduced her as a "guest" to the club-meetings, where
she was supported by the presence of many other guests--"my friend Miss
Stager, of Phalanx, Georgia," or (if the lady were literary) simply "my
friend Ora Prance Chettle of Nebraska--you know what Mrs. Chettle stands
for."

Some of these reunions took place in the lofty hotels moored like a
sonorously named fleet of battle-ships along the upper reaches of the
West Side: the Olympian, the Incandescent, the Ormolu; while others,
perhaps the more exclusive, were held in the equally lofty but more
romantically styled apartment-houses: the Parthenon, the Tintern Abbey
or the Lido.

Undine's preference was for the worldly parties, at which games were
played, and she returned home laden with prizes in Dutch silver; but
she was duly impressed by the debating clubs, where ladies of local
distinction addressed the company from an improvised platform, or the
members argued on subjects of such imperishable interest as: "What is
charm?" or "The Problem-Novel" after which pink lemonade and rainbow
sandwiches were consumed amid heated discussion of the "ethical aspect"
of the question.

It was all very novel