paedia in her eye, or whether they
simply found no intrinsic interest in these features, certain it is,
that, in spite of her mother's heroic efforts, and of incessant calls
on Lethbury's purse, Jane, at the end of her first season, had dropped
hopelessly out of the running. A few duller girls found her
interesting, and one or two young men came to the house with the object
of meeting other young women; but she was rapidly becoming one of the
social supernumeraries who are asked out only because they are on
people's lists.

The blow was bitter to Mrs. Lethbury; but she consoled herself with the
idea that Jane had failed because she was too clever. Jane probably
shared this conviction; at all events she betrayed no consciousness of
failure. She had developed a pronounced taste for society, and went
out, unweariedly and obstinately, winter after winter, while Mrs.
Lethbury toiled in her wake, showering attentions on oblivious
hostesses. To Lethbury there was something at once tragic and
exasperating in the sight of their two figures, the one conciliatory,
the other dogged, both pursuing with unabated zeal the elusive prize of
popularity. He even began to feel a personal stake in the pursuit, not
as it concerned Jane, but as it affected his wife. He saw that the
latter was the victim of Jane's disappointment: that Jane was not above
the crude satisfaction of "taking it out" of her mother. Experience
checked the impulse to come to his wife's defence; and when his
resentment was at its height, Jane disarmed him by giving up the
struggle.

Nothing was said to mark her capitulation; but Lethbury noticed that
the visiting ceased, and that the dressmaker's bills diminished. At the
same time, Mrs. Lethbury made it known that Jane had taken up
charities; and before long Jane's conversation confirmed this
announcement. At first Lethbury congratulated himself on the change;
but Jane's domesticity soon began to weigh on him. During the day she
was sometimes absent on errands of mercy; but in the evening she was
always there. At first she and Mrs. Lethbury sat in the drawing-room
together, and Lethbury smoked in the library; but presently Jane formed
the habit of joining him there, and he began to suspect that he was
included among the objects of her philanthropy.

Mrs. Lethbury confirmed the suspicion. "Jane has grown very
serious-minded lately," she said. "She imagines that she used to
neglect you, and she is trying to make up f