Liberal, dashing, mindful of all the _petits agrémens_, he was no woman’s slave—and yet, all women’s friend. If no single heart quivered at his master touch, still, there were many arms open to him _selon son métier_. A fatal curiosity led many a pretty Columbus on voyages of discovery to the Elmleaf—whereat Bagley duly grinned. That famous housewarming had been a marvel in its delicate recognition of the _monde ou l’on s’ennuie_, and the judicious hilarity of the Demi-Vierges. For the return of Mr. James Potter, now finally severed from the flagging firm of Hathorn & Wolfe, had furnished Vreeland with a brilliant new idea. There was a superb “First Part,” in which Mrs. Volney McMorris lightly and amiably matronized the bravest ladies of the “swim”—who had long been burning to inspect the splendors of the upper floor of the Elmleaf. Among the forty guests of the “official” programme, were such undeniably good form clubmen as Potter, Wiltshire, Merriman, and Rutherstone. They and their gilded brothers suggested the names of willing goddesses, and so it was that Miss Katharine VanDyke Norreys, the “staccato” Californian heiress—Mrs. Murray Renton, of Cleveland—and several other detached, semi-detached, and detachable women “of spotless reputation,” joyed with the host’s convives, dipped their laughing, rosy lips in his Roederer, and pattered with their lightly-treading feet over his airy domain of a wondrously refined luxury. It was nearly one o’clock when the grave Bagley had closed the last carriage door and sent the two policemen away with “a heavenly smile on their faces”—and a five-dollar bill clutched in each brawny hand. And then, on softly-rolling rubber wheels, came slipping along under the shadows of clubhouse and virtuous mansions of drowsy decorum, the pick of Cupid’s Dashing Free Lances—the very flower of the Light Infantry of Love. This “Pickett’s charge” of these demure Demi-Vierges was successful. It was the solemn Bagley who marveled as he sped these “shining ones” on their way up the stair at the struggling odors of “Y’lang Y’lang,” “Atkinson’s White Rose,” “Wood Violets,” and “Peau d’Espagne.” For days, that scented staircase recalled the “informal visit” of the regent moon, Miss Dickie Doubleday; the audacious Tottie Thistledown, the fair queen of light heels; Nannie Bell, the _mignonne chanteuse_, and several other disciples of the “partly” and, alas, the “altogether.” The girdle of Venus was _en évidence_ that happy night. It is true that the glass globes automatically shrank up in affright toward the ceiling, as these flashing-eyed birds fluttered in and burst upon the gay banquet “mid the bright bowls.” The Elmleaf never sheltered a lighter-hearted crew.