never do anything else. Why shouldn't he ask a friend to attend to
things for him? Or again, a now shop opens, and they want Mrs.
Waiting's trade for the sake of the advertising, and they offer her
a discount and me a commission. Why shouldn't I get her to try
them?"

"It's quite intricate," commented the other. "The stores have more
than one price, then?"

"They have as many prices as they have customers," was the answer.
"Why shouldn't they? New York is full of raw rich people who value
things by what they pay. And why shouldn't they pay high and be
happy? That opera-cloak that Alice has--Reval promised it to me for
two thousand, and I'll wager you she'd charge some woman from Butte,
Montana, thirty-five hundred for one just like it."

Montague got up suddenly. "Stop," he said, waving his hands. "You
take all the bloom off the butterfly's wings!"

He asked where they were going that evening, and Oliver said that
they were invited to an informal dinner-party at Mrs. Winnie
Duval's. Mrs. Winnie was the young widow who had recently married
the founder of the great banking-house of Puval and Co.--so Oliver
explained; she was a chum of his, and they would meet an interesting
set there. She was going to invite her cousin, Charlie Carter--she
wanted him to meet Alice. "Mrs. Winnie's always plotting to get
Charlie to settle down," said Oliver, with a merry laugh.

He telephoned for his man to bring over his clothes, and he and his
brother dressed. Then Alice came in, looking like the goddess of the