permitted him to possess what they had never known the
want of. First of all people must tire of repeating to each other that
he was nobody, and that would happen when they wearied of explaining to
one another why he was ever asked anywhere. There was time enough for
him to offer amusement to people after they had ceased to find amusement
in snubbing him; plenty of time in the future for them to lash him to
a gallop for their pleasure. In the meanwhile he was doing very well,
because he began to appear regularly in the Caithness-Bonnesdel box, and
old Peter Caithness was already boring him at the Patroons; which meant
that the thrifty old gentleman considered Plank's millions as a possible
underpinning for the sagging house of Caithness, of which his pallid
daughter Agatha was the sole sustaining caryatid in perspective.

Yes, he was doing well; for that despotic beauty, Sylvia Landis, whose
capricious perversity had recently astonished those who remembered her
in her first season as a sweet, reasonable, and unspoiled girl, was
always friendly with him. That must be looked upon as important,
considering Sylvia's unassailable position, and her kinship to the
autocratic old lady whose kindly ukase had for generations remained the
undisputed law in the social system of Manhattan.

"There is another matter," said Leila Mortimer innocently, as Plank,
lingering after a disastrous rubber of bridge with her, her husband, and
Agatha Caithness, had followed her into her own apartments to write his
cheque for what he owed. "You've driven with me so much and you come
here so often and we are seen together so frequently that the clans are
sharpening up their dirks for us. And that helps some."

"What!" exclaimed Plank, reddening, and twisting around in his chair.

"Certainly. You didn't suppose I could escape, did you?"

"Escape! What?" demanded Plank, getting redder.

"Escape being talked about, savagely, mercilessly. Can't you see how it
helps? Oh dear, are you stupid, Beverly?

"I don't know," replied Plank, staring, "just how stupid I am. If you
mean that I'm compromising you--"

"Oh, please! Why do you use back-stairs words? Nobody talks about
compromising now; all that went out with New Year's calls and
brown-stone stoops."

"What do they call it, then?" asked Plank seriously.

"Call what? you great boy!"

"What you say I'm doing?"

"I don't say it."

"Who does?"

Leila laughed, leaned back in her big, padded