He was a tall, solemn, hawk-nosed man, who had made a fortune after forty, and had been elected president of a great bank after fifty--an office which he accepted as if it were a sort of financial priesthood. Mrs. McFarlane, who went in for jeweled crowns and sweeping velvets, was suspected by her friends of a repressed wish to be queenly--nor indeed was her height and figure so different from that of the late Victoria. "Hewer, send down and have the outer doors closed," said Mr. Torby. And Hewer, having announced the last guest, who was a good deal flustered from having had his high hat smashed over his nose--left the room to obey. "They are bloodthirsty, simply bloodthirsty," continued Mr. McFarlane. "One villainous-looking fellow shouted at my wife: 'You don't look as if you needed another square meal for a year; give us a chance.'" "Accurate observers, at least," said Mrs. Grey in a twinkling aside to Miss Evington. "Come and sit down, my dear, and let us talk while these people regain their poise." "Do you think we are in any danger from the mob, Mrs. Grey?" asked the girl quietly. "The mob inside, or the mob out?" Miss Evington laughed. "Oh," she said. "Feeling like that about them, why did you come?" "I came," answered Mrs. Grey, "because I knew these people are trying to dazzle you with all their hideous possessions; and I wanted," she added simply, "to give you some standard of comparison." Miss Evington turned away to hide a smile, or perhaps it was a tear, at the old lady's self-confidence. She had an impulse to explain that if she refused the Torby millions, it would not be on account of Mrs. Grey's high breeding; and then she stopped to wonder whether, after all, it had not something to do with the situation--indirectly. Mr. Barnsell approached them, shaking his head. "Well," he said, "now I hope Washington will see the consequence of coddling the lower classes." Mr. Barnsell's railroad investments had declined. "This should be a great lesson to the Administration," said Mr. Lossing--a slim, elderly man, who seemed to have decreased in bulk through constant shrinking from outrages against his notion of good taste and good manners. "As my dear old father used to say--" "It's the French Revolution over again," said Mrs. McFarlane, still panting a little. "It's the hatred of the common man for the aristocrat." "The aristocrat, my dear!" murmured Mrs. Grey to her young friend. "Her father-in-law was my father's gardener, and she must know I know it." At this moment a stone crashed through one of the long French windows of the drawing-room. Trevillian Torby rushed to Miss Evington's side. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Grey." "Thank you--I'm not," said Mrs. Grey, tossing her gray head slightly, as if to say it was a pretty state of affairs when Trevillian Torby could intervene in her fate. "If you won't think me rude, I must say the evening is turning out more amusing than I had expected."