"Why, have a select little dinner for ten or twenty choice spirits of the
male persuasion, and then, about ten o'clock, throw open your palatial
drawing-rooms and admit the females to champagne, salads, and ices. It is
the very thing! Come!"

"What do you think of it, Mr. March?" asked Dryfoos, on whose social
inexperience Fulkerson's words projected no very intelligible image, and
who perhaps hoped for some more light.

"It's a beautiful vision," said March, "and if it will take more time to
realize it I think I approve. I approve of anything that will delay Mr.
Fulkerson's advertising orgie."

"Then," Fulkerson pursued, "we could have the pleasure of Miss Christine
and Miss Mela's company; and maybe Mrs. Dryfoos would look in on us in
the course of the evening. There's no hurry, as Mr. March suggests, if we
can give the thing this shape. I will cheerfully adopt the idea of my
honorable colleague."

March laughed at his impudence, but at heart he was ashamed of Fulkerson
for proposing to make use of Dryfoos and his house in that way. He
fancied something appealing in the look that the old man turned on him,
and something indignant in Conrad's flush; but probably this was only his
fancy. He reflected that neither of them could feel it as people of more
worldly knowledge would, and he consoled himself with the fact that
Fulkerson was really not such a charlatan as he seemed. But it went
through his mind that this was a strange end for all Dryfoos's
money-making to come to; and he philosophically accepted the fact of his
own humble fortunes when he reflected how little his money could buy for