calculations. Training and experience had taught her to be
hospitable to newcomers, since the most unpromising might be
useful later on, and there were plenty of available OUBLIETTES to
swallow them if they were not. But some intuitive repugnance,
getting the better of years of social discipline, had made her
push Mr. Rosedale into his OUBLIETTE without a trial. He had left
behind only the ripple of amusement which his speedy despatch had
caused among her friends; and though later (to shift the
metaphor) he reappeared lower down the stream, it was only in
fleeting glimpses, with long submergences between.

Hitherto Lily had been undisturbed by scruples. In her little set
Mr. Rosedale had been pronounced "impossible," and Jack Stepney
roundly snubbed for his attempt to pay his debts in dinner
invitations. Even Mrs. Trenor, whose taste for variety had led
her into some hazardous experiments, resisted Jack's attempts to
disguise Mr. Rosedale as a novelty, and declared that he was the
same little Jew who had been served up and rejected at the social
board a dozen times within her memory; and while Judy Trenor was
obdurate there was small chance of Mr. Rosedale's penetrating
beyond the outer limbo of the Van Osburgh crushes. Jack gave up
the contest with a laughing "You'll see," and, sticking manfully
to his guns, showed himself with Rosedale at the fashionable
restaurants, in company with the personally vivid if socially
obscure ladies who are available for such purposes. But the
attempt had hitherto been vain, and as Rosedale undoubtedly paid
for the dinners, the laugh remained with his debtor.

Mr. Rosedale, it will be seen, was thus far not a factor to be
feared--unless one put one's self in his power. And this was