There was nothing of the monopolist about Mabel, and she lost no time in making Undine free of the Stentorian group and its affiliated branches:  a society addicted to “days,” and linked together by membership in countless clubs, mundane, cultural or “earnest.”  Mabel took Undine to the days, and introduced her as a “guest” to the club-meetings, where she was supported by the presence of many other guests—­“my friend Miss Stager, of Phalanx, Georgia,” or (if the lady were literary) simply “my friend Ora Prance Chettle of Nebraska—­you know what Mrs. Chettle stands for.”

Some of these reunions took place in the lofty hotels moored like a sonorously named fleet of battle-ships along the upper reaches of the West Side:  the Olympian, the Incandescent, the Ormolu; while others, perhaps the more exclusive, were held in the equally lofty but more romantically styled apartment-houses:  the Parthenon, the Tintern Abbey or the Lido.

Undine’s preference was for the worldly parties, at which games were played, and she returned home laden with prizes in Dutch silver; but she was duly impressed by the debating clubs, where ladies of local distinction addressed the company from an improvised platform, or the members argued on subjects of such imperishable interest as:  “What is charm?” or “The Problem-Novel” after which pink lemonade and rainbow sandwiches were consumed amid heated discussion of the “ethical aspect” of the question.

It was all very novel and interesting, and at first Undine envied Mabel Lipscomb for having made herself a place in such circles; but in time she began to despise her for being content to remain there.  For it did not take Undine long to learn that introduction to Mabel’s “set” had brought her no nearer to Fifth Avenue.  Even in Apex, Undine’s tender imagination had been nurtured on the feats and gestures of Fifth Avenue.  She knew all of New York’s golden aristocracy by name, and the lineaments of its most distinguished scions had been made familiar by passionate poring over the daily press.  In Mabel’s world she sought in vain for the originals, and only now and then caught a tantalizing glimpse of one of their familiars:  as when Claud Walsingham Popple, engaged on the portrait of a lady whom the Lipscombs described as “the wife of a Steel Magnet,” felt it his duty to attend one of his client’s teas, where it became Mabel’s privilege to make his acquaintance and to name to him her friend Miss Spragg.

Unsuspected social gradations were thus revealed to the attentive Undine, but she was beginning to think that her sad proficiency had been acquired in vain when her hopes were revived by the appearance of Mr. Popple and his friend at the Stentorian dance.  She thought she had learned enough to be safe from any risk of repeating the hideous Aaronson mistake; yet she now saw she had blundered again in distinguishing Claud Walsingham Popple while she almost snubbed his more retiring companion.  It was all very puzzling, and her perplexity had been farther increased by Mrs. Heeny’s tale of the great Mrs. Harmon B. Driscoll’s despair.