clever enough, we may be recognized as somebodies, provided there is something original or interesting about us.  There!  I have told you my secret and shocked you into the bargain.  I really must be going.  But I’ll tell you another secret first:  It’ll be a pleasure to me to see you, if I may, because you look at things differently and haven’t a social bee.  I wish I were like that—­really like it.  But then, as Gregory would say, I shouldn’t be myself, and not to be one’s self is worse than anything else after all, isn’t it?  You and your husband must come and dine with us soon.”

After Mrs. Williams had gone, Selma fell into a brown study.  She had listened to sentiments of which she thoroughly disapproved, and which were at variance with all her theories and conceptions.  What her friendly, frivolous visitor had told her with engaging frankness offended her conscience and patriotism.  She did not choose to admit the existence of these class-distinctions, and she knew that even if they did exist, they could not possibly concern Wilbur and herself.  Even Mrs. Williams had appreciated that Wilbur and her literary superiority put them above and beyond the application of any snobbish, artificial, social measuring-tape.  And yet Selma’s brow was clouded.  Her thought reverted to the row of stately houses on either side of Fifth Avenue, into none of which she had the right of free access, in spite of the fact that she was leading her life attractively and finely, without regard to society.  She thought instinctively of Sodom and Gomorrah, and she saw righteously with her mind’s eye for a moment an angel with a flaming sword consigning to destruction these offending mansions and their owners as symbols of mammon and contraband to God.

That evening she told Wilbur of Mrs. Williams’s visit.  “She’s a bright, amusing person, and quite pretty.  We took a fancy to each other.  But what do you suppose she said?  She intimated that we haven’t any social position.”

“Very kind of her, I’m sure.  She must be a woman of discrimination—­likewise something of a character.”

“She’s smart.  So you think it’s true?”

“What?  About our social position?  Ours is as good as theirs, I fancy.”

“Oh yes, Wilbur.  She acknowledges that herself.  She admires us both and she thinks it fine that we don’t care for that sort of thing.  What she said was chiefly in connection with herself, but she intimated that neither they, nor we, are the—­er—­equals of the people who live on Fifth Avenue and thereabouts.  She’s a cousin of the Morton Prices, whoever they may be, and she declared perfectly frankly that they were better than she.  Wasn’t it funny?”

“You seem to have made considerable progress for one visit.”

“I like that, you know, Wilbur.  I prefer people who are willing to tell me their real feelings at once.”

“Morton Price is one of the big bugs.  His great grandfather was among the wise, shrewd pioneers in the commercial progress of the city.  The present generation are eminently respectable, very dignified, mildly philanthropic, somewhat self-indulgent, reasonably harmless, decidedly ornamental and rather dull.”