New York society was, in those days, far too small,
and too scant in its resources, for every one in it
(including livery-stable-keepers, butlers and cooks) not
to know exactly on which evenings people were free;
and it was thus possible for the recipients of Mrs.
Lovell Mingott's invitations to make cruelly clear their
determination not to meet the Countess Olenska.

The blow was unexpected; but the Mingotts, as their
way was, met it gallantly. Mrs. Lovell Mingott
confided the case to Mrs. Welland, who confided it to
Newland Archer; who, aflame at the outrage, appealed
passionately and authoritatively to his mother; who,
after a painful period of inward resistance and outward
temporising, succumbed to his instances (as she always
did), and immediately embracing his cause with an
energy redoubled by her previous hesitations, put on
her grey velvet bonnet and said: "I'll go and see Louisa
van der Luyden."

The New York of Newland Archer's day was a small
and slippery pyramid, in which, as yet, hardly a fissure
had been made or a foothold gained. At its base was a
firm foundation of what Mrs. Archer called "plain
people"; an honourable but obscure majority of
respectable families who (as in the case of the Spicers or
the Leffertses or the Jacksons) had been raised above
their level by marriage with one of the ruling clans.
People, Mrs. Archer always said, were not as particular