er mind in
purple and gold....

The shining pair had just arrived, lateness being reckoned very
differently in Houses of Heth and Houses of Dabney. Their brilliant
progress down the long gay room, stopped often for the giving and taking
of greetings, left behind awake of _sotto-voce_ compliment. Cally Heth,
though the familiar sight of every day, was a spectacle, or view, not
easily tired of. In a company in which most had known each other from
birth, her distinguished stranger and captive naturally drew even
keener interest.

"Look, there he is!" whispered an excited debutante. "Oh, what a
dream!..."

"I never saw Cally look better. If she were _only_ a little taller, what
a match they'd make." (This was Cally's second-best friend Evelyn McVey,
herself a tall girl.)

"Wissner ought to hit up that well-known snatch from' Lohengrin' ..."

"Certainly, Mrs. Bronson. Delighted to introduce you--introduce him,
that is. Just a little later, though. Wouldn't have me interrupt _that_,
would you?"

Thus faithful Willie Kerr, somewhat harassed by the responsibilities of
being next friend to a crown prince.

Backbiting among the well-bred murmurs there was of course. Mrs.
Berkeley Page, the hostile one who had made the remark about the Heths
being very improbable people, naturally spoke in her characteristic
vein. She made her observations to her great crony, Mr. Richard Marye,
who plucked a glass of champagne from a beckoned lackey, and answered:

"Whoever conceived a Canning to be an anchorite?... My dear, why are you
so severe with these very excellent and worthy people?"

"Is it severe," said the lady, "to refuse to be cozened by gay lips and
dramatic hair?"

"Aspiration," mused her elderly friend, sipping comfortably, "is the
mainspring of progress. Don't you admire onward and upward? What harm
can a little climbing possibly do to you and me?"

"Oh, Mr. Dick! All the harm that the tail does when it begins to wag the
dog. Don't you observe how these people set up their own standards, and
get them accepted, whatever old fogies like you and me may say? They
_unsoul_ us--that's what they do, and we may scream, but we can't stop
them. Their argument is that money can do everything, and the
intolerable part of it is that they _prove it_. Ah, me!--"

"Also, O temperament! O Moriarty! For my part, Mary, I'm a Democrat--"

"You're an old-fashioned Church of England man, and incidentally a great
dear," said Mary Page.