would ridicule her more or less openly. And he, instead of kicking them
out into the mews--which could have been done easily without Grosvenor
Square knowing anything about it, and thereby having its high-class
feelings hurt--he would blame her when they had all gone, just as if it
was her fault that she was the daughter of a respectable bootmaker in the
Mile End Road instead of something more likely than not turned out of the
third row of the ballet because it couldn't dance, and didn't want to
learn.

"He played a bit in the City, and won at first, and that swelled his head
worse than ever. It also brought him a good deal of sympathy from an
Italian Countess, the sort you find at Homburg, and that generally
speaking is a widow. Her chief sorrow was for society--that in him was
losing an ornament. She explained to him how an accomplished and
experienced woman could help a man to gain admittance into the tiptop
circles, which, according to her, were just thirsting for him. As a
waiter, he had his share of brains, and it's a business that requires
more insight than perhaps you'd fancy, if you don't want to waste your
time on a rabbit-skin coat and a paste ring, and give the burnt sole to
the real gent. But in the hands of this swell mob he was, of course,
just the young man from the country; and the end of it was that he played
the game down pretty low.

"She--not the Countess, I shouldn't like you to have that idea, but his
wife--came to be pretty friendly with my missus later on, and that's how
I got to know the details. He comes to her one day looking pretty
sheepish-like, as one can well believe, and maybe he'd been drinking a
bit to give himself courage.

"'We ain't been getting along too well together of late, have we, Susan?'