IV

The interval between that night and the day upon which the estate was
settled, Andrew passed in a sort of impatient dream. Never before had
days, weeks, months seemed so long; never had he so dissociated himself
from his little world and melted into that luminous circle of which he
was to become a component part. How he was to obtain his passport into
fashionable society was a question that did not concern him. Its portals
were typified to him by the wide gates of Central Park, through which
all might roll upon whom fortune smiled. One blessed fact possessed his
mind: by the first of July he should be master of his future, liberated
from his desk, free to go to Newport. When his foot actually pressed
that reservation, all the rest would come about quite naturally. At this
time he still preserved his self-respect. He felt quite the equal of the
men he had brushed elbows with at Delmonico's--the pink-faced youths
with their butter-colored tops, the affable elderly men with their
bulbous stomachs and puffy eyes. And he had caught many of their little
fads. He had risen in the night, and opening the door connecting the
kitchen and dining-room, that he might have sufficient scope, he had
practised the remarkable gait of the New York youth of fashion: that
slight forward inclination of the shoulders, that slighter crab-like
angle of the body, that ponderous thoughtful tread: the only difference
from the walk of the "tough" being in the length of the step. One hand
was in a pocket, the other absently manipulated a stick. He had also
witnessed the hand-shake, and of his proficiency in this accomplishment
he felt assured.

On the third day of July, one hour after the law had yielded up its
temporary foundling, he ordered an elaborate outfit from the most
fashionable tailor in New York. This order and others drilled a large