day after day by meeting people who had read it.  His name began to be known in a small circle who are interested in the business, and it was not long before he had offers from editors, who were always on the lookout for new writers of promise, to send something for their magazines.  And, perhaps more flattering than all, he began to have society invitations to dine, and professional invitations to those little breakfasts that publishers give to old writers and to young whose names are beginning to be spoken of.  All this was very exhilarating and encouraging.  And yet Philip was not allowed to be unduly elated by the attention of his fellow-craftsmen, for he soon found that a man’s consequence in this circle, as well as with the great public, depended largely upon the amount of the sale of his book.  How else should it be rated, when a very popular author, by whom Philip sat one day at luncheon, confessed that he never read books?

“So,” said Mr. Sharp, one morning, “I see you have gone into literature, Mr. Burnett.”

“Not very deep,” replied Philip with a smile, as he rose from his desk.

“Going to drop law, eh?”

“I haven’t had occasion to drop much of anything yet,” said Philip, still smiling.

“Oh well, two masters, you know,” and Mr. Sharp passed on to his room.

It was not, however, Mr. Sharp’s opinion that Philip was concerned about.  The polite note from Mrs. Mavick stuck in his mind.  It was a civil way of telling him that all summer debts were now paid, and that his relations with the house of Mavick were at an end.  This conclusion was forced upon him when he left his card, a few days after the reception, and had the ill luck not to find the ladies at home.  The situation had no element of tragedy in it, but Philip was powerless.  He could not storm the house.  He had no visible grievance.  There was nothing to fight.  He had simply run against one of the invisible social barriers that neither offer resistance nor yield.  No one had shown him any discourtesy that society would recognize as a matter of offense.  Nay, more than that, it could have no sympathy with him.  It was only the case of a presumptuous and poor young man who was after a rich girl.  The position itself was ignoble, if it were disclosed.

Yet fortune, which sometimes likes to play the mischief with the best social arrangements, did give Philip an unlooked-for chance.  At a dinner given by the lady who had been Philip’s only partner at the Mavick reception, and who had read his story and had written to “her partner” a most kind little note regretting that she had not known she was dancing with an author, and saying that she and her husband would be delighted to make his acquaintance, Philip was surprised by the presence of the Mavicks in the drawing-room.  Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Mavick seemed especially pleased when they encountered him, and in fact his sole welcome from the family was in the eyes of Evelyn.