nown as Mrs. Devon. He came and took his chances in the
jostling throngs; and except that he got into casual conversation with
one of the numerous detectives whom he took for a guest he came off
fairly well. But all the time that he was being passed about and
introduced and danced with, he was looking about him and wondering. The
grand staircase and the hall and parlours had been turned into tropical
gardens, with palms and trailing vines, and azaleas and roses, and
great vases of scarlet poinsettia, with hundreds of lights glowing
through them. (It was said that this ball had exhausted the flower
supply of the country as far south as Atlanta.) And then in the
reception room one came upon the little old lady, standing' beneath a
bower of orchids. She was clad in a robe of royal purple trimmed with
silver, and girdled about with an armour-plate of gems. If one might
credit the papers, the diamonds that were worn at one of these balls
were valued at twenty million dollars.

The stranger was quite overwhelmed by all the splendour. There was a
cotillion danced by two hundred gorgeously clad women and their
partners--a scene so gay that one could only think of it as happening
in a fairy legend, or some old romance of knighthood. Four sets of
favours were given during this function, and jewels and objects of art
were showered forth as if from a magician's wand. Mrs. Devon herself
soon disappeared, but the riot of music and merry-making went on until
near morning, and during all this time the halls and rooms of the great
mansion were so crowded that one could scarcely move about.

Then one went home, and realized that all this splendour, and the human
effort which it represented, had been for nothing but a memory! Nor
would he get the full meaning of it if he failed to realize that it was
simply one of thousands--a pattern which every one there would strive
to follow in some function of his own. It was a signal bell, which told
the world that the "season" was open. It loosed the floodgates of
extravagance, and the torrent of dissipation poured forth. From then on
there would be a continuous round of gaieties; one might have three
banquets every single night--for a dinner and two suppers was now the
custom, at entertainments! And filling the rest of one's day were
receptions and teas and musicales--a person might take his choice among
a score of opportunities, and never leave the circle he met at Mrs.
Devon's. Nor was this cou