ne cup of happiness filled to overflowing? the only
requisite being that beau and baron shall preserve their incognito
to the end; hence the season must be short in order that no one's
identity may be discovered.

At Newport every one labors under the disadvantage of being
known,--for the most part too well known. How painful it must be
to spend summer after summer in a world of reality, where the
truth is so much more thrilling than any possible fiction that
people are deprived of the pleasure of invention and the
imagination falls into desuetude. At Narragansett every one is
veneered for the occasion,--every seam, scar, and furrow is hidden
by paint, powder, and rouge; the duchess may be a cook, but the
count who is a butler gains nothing by exposing her.

The very conditions of existence at Newport demand the exposure of
every frailty and every folly; the skeleton must sit at the feast.
There is no room for gossip where the facts are known. Nothing is
whispered; the megaphone carries the tale. What a ghastly society,
where no amount of finery hides the bald, the literal truth; where
each night the same ones meet and, despite the vain attempt to
deceive by outward appearances, relentlessly look each other
through and through. Of what avail is a necklace of pearls or a
gown of gold against such X-ray vision, such intimate knowledge of
one's past, of all one's physical, mental, and moral shortcomings?
The smile fades from the lips, the hollow compliment dies on the
tongue, for how is it possible to pretend in the presence of those
who know?

At Narragansett friends are strangers, in Newport they are
enemies; in both places the quality of friendship is strained. The
two problems of existence are, Whom shall I recognize? and, Who
will recognize me? A man's standing depends upon the women he
knows; a woman's upon the women she cuts. At a summer resort
recognition is a fine art which is not affected by any prior
condition of servitude or acquaintance. No woman can afford to
sacrifice her position upon the altar of friendship; in these
small worlds recognition has no relation whatsoever to friendship,
it is rather a convention. If your hostess of the winter passes
you with a cold stare, it is a matter of prudence rather than
indifference; the outside world does not understand these things,
but is soon made to.

Women are the arbiters of social fate, and as such must be
placated, but not too servilely. In society a blo