ssly, "and it may
be you've been looking at the side-show and not at the entertainment in
the main tent. Will you admit that possibility, Miss Doyle?"

Patsy laughed gleefully.

"I think you have me there, Miss Von Taer. And what do _I_ know about
society? Just nothing at all. It's out of my line entirely."

"Perhaps it is," was the slow response. "Society appeals to only those
whose tastes seem to require it."

"And aren't we drawing distinctions?" enquired Miss Doyle. "Society at
large is the main evidence of civilization, and all decent folk are
members of it."

"Isn't that communism?" asked Diana.

"Perhaps so. It's society at large. But certain classes have leagued
together and excluded themselves from their fellows, admitting only
those of their own ilk. The people didn't put them on their
pedestals--they put themselves there. Yet the people bow down and
worship these social gods and seem glad to have them. The newspapers
print their pictures and the color of their gowns and how they do their
hair and what they eat and what they do, and the poor washwomen and
shop-girls and their like read these accounts more religiously than they
do their bibles. My maid Mary's a good girl, but she grabs the society
sheet of the Sunday paper and reads it from top to bottom. I never look
at it myself."

Diana's cheeks were burning. She naturally resented such ridicule,
having been born to regard social distinction with awe and reverence.
Inwardly resolving to make Miss Patricia Doyle regret the speech she hid
all annoyance under her admirable self-control and answered with smooth
complacency:

"Your estimate of society, my dear Miss Doyle, is superficial."

"Don't I know it, then?" exclaimed Patsy. "Culture and breeding,
similarity of taste and intellectual pursuits will always attract
certain people and band them together in those cliques which are called
'social sets,' They are not secret societies; they have no rules of
exclusion; congenial minds are ever welcome to their ranks. This is a
natural coalition, in no way artificial. Can you not appreciate that,
Miss Doyle?"

"Yes, indeed," admitted Patsy, promptly. "You're quite right, and I'm
just one of those stupid creatures who criticise the sun because there's
a cloud before it. Probably there are all grades of society, because
there are all grades of people."

"I thought you would agree with me when you understood," murmured Diana,
and her expression was so smu