odge-meetings of the Lady Mahadharatas of America. For weddings and
receptions, a lane of red carpet leads up to the slight dais; and lined
about the brocade and paneled walls, gilt-and-brocade chairs, with the
crest of Walsingham in padded embroidery on the backs. Crystal chandeliers,
icicles of dripping light, glow down upon a scene of parquet floor, draped
velours, and mirrors wreathed in gilt.

At Miss Selene Coblenz's engagement reception, an event properly festooned
with smilax and properly jostled with the elbowing figures of waiters
tilting their plates of dark-meat chicken salad, two olives, and a
finger-roll in among the crowd, a stringed three-piece orchestra, faintly
seen and still more faintly heard, played into the babel.

Light, glitteringly filtered through the glass prisms, flowed down upon the
dais; upon Miss Selene Coblenz, in a taffeta that wrapped her flat waist
and chest like a calyx and suddenly bloomed into the full-inverted petals
of a skirt; upon Mr. Lester Goldmark, his long body barely knitted yet
to man's estate, and his complexion almost clear, standing omnivorous,
omnipotent, omnipresent, his hair so well brushed that it lay like black
japanning, a white carnation at his silk lapel, and his smile slightly
projected by a rush of very white teeth to the very front. Next in line,
Mrs. Coblenz, the red of a fervent moment high in her face, beneath the
maroon-net bodice the swell of her bosom, fast, and her white-gloved hand
constantly at the opening and shutting of a lace-and-spangled fan. Back,
and well out of the picture, a potted hydrangea beside the Louis Quinze
armchair, her hands in silk mitts laid out along the gold-chair sides, her
head quavering in a kind of mild palsy, Mrs. Miriam Horowitz, smiling and
quivering her state of bewilderment.

With an unfailing propensity to lay hold of to whomsoever he spake, Mr.
Lester Goldmark placed his white-gloved hand upon the white-gloved arm of
Mrs. Coblenz.

"Say, Mother Coblenz, ain't it about time this little girl of mine was
resting her pink-satin double A's? She's been on duty up here from four to
seven. No wonder Uncle Mark bucked."

Mrs. Coblenz threw her glance out over the crowded room, surging with a
wave of plumes and clipped heads like a swaying bucket of water which
crowds but does not lap over its sides.

"I guess the crowd is finished coming in by now. You tired, Selene?"

Miss Coblenz turned her glowing glance.

"Tired! T