Then came in Mrs. James De Witt, _née_ Duval, just made a matron and fresh from a wedding-journey which had proved somewhat slow to her; Strephon and Chloe did not go on wedding journeys, I suppose; it was Helen and Paris began the fashion. Then Mrs. Malgam came in; and Flossie had her usual velvet battle with her dear enemy and rival friend. Mrs. Gower envied her her stupid youth, and silly round cheeks. Shall I go and leave the field with her? she thought. But the field would be hers, anyhow, in a few years. Then there came in two prying matrons, of those whom Flossie had defeated in the world’s esteem, so many years ago. They had lived to see their fiats disregarded, and their reception-rooms depleted, and their daughters put out and their sons dazzled, all by this little Flossie Starbuck; and they loved her accordingly. Would their hour of triumph never come again? Flossie wondered why they came to-day; they had not been to see her, save in the most symbolical of paste-board calls, since three months after her marriage. But they had never, since that first triumphant season, dared to question her divine right, by wit and beauty and style, to rule. Could it be that they really meant to bury the hatchet and surrender unconditionally? Or did they scent, like envious ravens, her coming overthrow? She was indifferently polite to them; but made little effort to conceal that she was bored. Dear me, will a man never come? Mrs. Gower rose, when they had gone, and pressed her feverish brow against the mirror. How marked the wrinkles were beneath the eyes! Men’s voices were heard at last, and Flossie turned her back to the window. It was only a silly fellow, an artist, whom Mrs. Gower had made, and who now presumed upon it; and with him a dancing boy. The boy was nice enough at germans; and was at least a gentleman, but the other was only a swell, which even Flossie Gower realized to be a different thing. Genius soars above birth, so Van Smeer disowned his mother; but he preferred to be known as a gentleman rather than as an artist, and only painted the portraits of his fair friends carelessly, à la Congreve, and by way of flirtation, as it were. It was fun for Flossie to snub this man, and see his color change. Mrs. Wilton Hay had come in, the woman to whom Flossie had suspected Van Smeer of transferring his incense. “I have been thinking for some time of setting up an establishment in England,” said he to Mrs. Hay, who was going back. “My friend Lord Footlight is by way of having a sort of historical pageant in his theatre at his place in Surrey, and is very keen to have me come.” To which Mrs. Hay made no reply, but Mrs. Gower did. “Do, Mr. Van Smeer,” she said; “I should think her native air would do your poor mother so much good.”