great favor of presenting me at the next lev e?"



CHAPTER 21


One's life changes in a moment. Half a month ago, Lothair, without an
acquaintance, was meditating his return to Oxford. Now he seemed to
know everybody who was anybody. His table was overflowing with
invitations to all the fine houses in town. First came the routs and
the balls; then, when he had been presented to the husbands, came the
dinners. His kind friends the duchess and Lady St. Jerome were the
fairies which had worked this sudden scene of enchantment. A single
word from them, and London was at Lothair's feet.

He liked it amazingly. He quite forgot the conclusion at which he had
arrived respecting society a year ago, drawn from his vast experience of
the single party which he had then attended. Feelings are different
when you know a great many persons, and every person is trying to please
you; above all, when there are individuals whom you want to meet, and
whom, if you do not meet, you become restless.

Town was beginning to blaze. Broughams whirled and bright barouches
glanced, troops of social cavalry cantered and caracolled in morning
rides, and the bells of prancing ponies, lashed by delicate hands,
jingled in the laughing air. There were stoppages in Bond Street, which
seems to cap the climax of civilization, after crowded clubs and
swarming parks.