ted were calculated to suggest that her rival's hospitality
was a reversion to the customs of primitive savagery.

The above is a fair sample of the kind of conversation that one heard
whenever one visited any of the Wallings. Perhaps, as Mrs. Robbie said,
it may have been their millions that made necessary their attitude
toward other people; certain it was, at any rate, that Montague found
them all most disagreeable people to know. There was always some
tempest in a teapot over the latest machinations of their enemies. And
then there was the whole dead mass of people who sponged upon them and
toadied to them; and finally the barbarian hordes outside the magic
circle of their acquaintance--some specimens of whom came up every day
for ridicule. They had big feet and false teeth; they ate mush and
molasses; they wore ready-made ties; they said: "Do you wish that I
should do it?" Their grandfathers had been butchers and pedlars and
other abhorrent things. Montague tried his best to like the Wallings,
because of what they were doing for Alice; but after he had sat at
their lunch-table and listened to a conversation such as this, he found
himself in need of fresh air.

And then he would begin to wonder about his own relation to these
people. If they talked about every one else behind their backs,
certainly they must talk about him behind his. And why did they go out
of their way to make him at home, and why were they spending their
money to launch Alice in Society? In the beginning he had assumed that
they did it out of the goodness of their hearts; but now that he had
looked into their hearts, he rejected the explanation. It was not their
way to shower princely gifts upon strangers; in general, the attitude
of all the Wallings toward a stranger was that of the London
hooligan--"'Eave a 'arf a brick at 'im!" They considered themselves
especially appointed by Providence to protect Society from the vulgar
newly rich who poured into the city, seeking for notoriety and
recognition. They prided themselves upon this attitude--they called it
their "exclusiveness"; and the exclusiveness of the younger generations
of Wallings had become a kind of insanity.

Nor could the reason be that Alice was beautiful and attractive. One
could have imagined it if Mrs. Robbie had been like--say, Mrs. Winnie
Duval. It was easy to think of Mrs. Winnie taking a fancy to a girl,
and spending half her fortune upon her. But from a hundred little
thin