with thoughts of possible failure. Almost at once she had
recognized herself as unsuited temperamentally for association with
certain types of society women. The wife of Anson Merrill, the
great dry-goods prince, whom she saw in one of the down-town stores
one day, impressed her as much too cold and remote. Mrs. Merrill
was a woman of superior mood and education who found herself, in
her own estimation, hard put to it for suitable companionship in
Chicago. She was Eastern-bred-Boston--and familiar in an offhand
way with the superior world of London, which she had visited several
times. Chicago at its best was to her a sordid commercial mess.
She preferred New York or Washington, but she had to live here.
Thus she patronized nearly all of those with whom she condescended
to associate, using an upward tilt of the head, a tired droop of
the eyelids, and a fine upward arching of the brows to indicate
how trite it all was.

It was a Mrs. Henry Huddlestone who had pointed out Mrs. Merrill
to Aileen. Mrs. Huddlestone was the wife of a soap manufacturer
living very close to the Cowperwoods' temporary home, and she and
her husband were on the outer fringe of society. She had heard
that the Cowperwoods were people of wealth, that they were friendly
with the Addisons, and that they were going to build a
two-hundred-thousand-dollar mansion. (The value of houses always
grows in the telling.) That was enough. She had called, being
three doors away, to leave her card; and Aileen, willing to curry
favor here and there, had responded. Mrs. Huddlestone was a little
woman, not very attractive in appearance, clever in a social way,
and eminently practical.

"Speaking of Mrs. Merrill," commented Mrs. Huddlestone, on this