,
when in action, concealed the ill-tempered lines of his thin old face.
He greeted his guests cordially, and made them welcome to his home.

Lady Ada had the inherited bad manners of her family, the De
Baronsvilles, who had come over with the Conqueror, and when one has a
_cachet_ like that there is no need to trouble one's self further. Thus,
while Mildred flashed brilliant witticisms about, plain Barbara saw
after the guests' tea and sugar, and if they took cream or lemon, and
tiresome things like that. And as every one knew every one else, and the
same party met continuously all over England, things were very gay and
friendly.

Only Theodora and Josiah were completely out of it all, and several of
the guests, who resented the intrusion of these strangers into their
charmed circle, would take care on every opportunity to make them feel
it.

Hector did not get there until half an hour later, in his automobile,
which was the mode of arrival with more than two-thirds of the company.

And until the dressing-gong sounded, a continuous teuf-teuf-teuf might
have been heard as, one after another, the cars whizzed up to the door.

Of course, in a troop of over thirty people, naturally some had kind
hearts and good manners, but the prevailing tone of this coterie of
_creme de la creme_ was one of pure selfishness and blunt and material
brutality.

If you were rich and suited them, you were given a nickname probably,
and were allowed to play cards with them, and lose your money for their
benefit. If you were non-congenial you did not exist--that was all. You
might be sitting in a chair, but they only saw it and an empty
space--you did not even cumber their ground.

To do them justice, they preferred people of their own exalted station;
outsiders seldom made their way into this holy of holies, however rich
they were--unless, of course, they happened to be Mildred's lovers. That
situation for a man held special prerogatives, and was greatly coveted
by pretenders to this circle of grace.

Intellectual intelligence was not important. Some of the women of this
select company had been described by an agricultural duke who had stayed
there as having just enough sense to come in out of the rain.

Sir Patrick Fitzgerald occasionally departed from the strict limits of
this set in the big parties--especially lately, when money was becoming
scarcer, several financial friends who could put him on to good things
had been included,