“Yes, Hudgins, I tell you. When the time came for the ladies to leave the table none of them wanted to go, and they said so. Then Hudgins rose and said in that inimitable manner of his, which catches the women every time, ‘If Miss Maitland would kindly permit it, I’d rather a million times go into the parlour with her and the other ladies than stay out here with these fellows. I can get the society of men and a cigar any day, but it isn’t often that I can bask in the presence of ladies like these present.’ And the presumptuous dog actually walked off and left us in the lurch--and you can depend upon it, the women liked him better than any of us.” “If women are won by compliments like that, any man can win their favour,” said Crane, crossly. “My dear fellow, women know vastly more than we do. It wasn’t Hudgins’s compliments in words that won the women--it was his giving up his cigar and the extra glass of champagne and the society of men that fetched ’em--it was the sincerity of the thing. When we went into the drawing-room Hudgins was sitting on the piano-stool telling them some sentimental story about his mother down in Texas when he started out in life, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a six-shooter in his pocket. The women were nearly in tears. As for the rest of us, including Sir Mark le Poer, we simply weren’t in it with Hudgins. We stayed until nearly midnight; then the men adjourned to the club, where Hudgins kept us until three o’clock in the morning telling us more yarns about Texas. Sir Mark would hardly let him out of sight, and Hudgins has engaged to spend August with him in Scotland at a splendid place he has near Inverness. That’s the way a man with great natural gifts of entertaining and being entertained can get on, if he has a chance.” Crane felt humiliated and disappointed. In all honesty, he could not imagine why he, with his recognised talents, his extreme good looks, his fondness for society, should have no such social triumphs as that long, lean, lanky Texan. He had not grasped the truth that society is a pure democracy, and until a man has abandoned all pretensions to superiority he will not be acceptable in it. Just then, along the dusky street a carriage came rolling. At Thorndyke’s door it stopped, a footman descended from the box and assisted Senator Bicknell to alight. “The Senator has come hunting you up,” Thorndyke remarked to Crane. “When a man is anxious enough to see you to come after you, it is generally possible to make your own terms with him.” Crane’s backbone was considerably stiffened by this remark of Thorndyke’s, and then Senator Bicknell walked in the room and greeted Thorndyke and Crane affably. He made an elaborate apology for seeking Crane, but said frankly he wished to discuss some matters of State politics with him.