Save for the two grooms away off in the stern we were alone, Mrs. Radigan holding the ribbons over four spanking grays and I on the box-seat at her side. It is a dreadful way to drive. I can never understand why people who can afford to be free and independent should subject themselves to the constant scrutiny of these superior servants. Every word I ventured rattled with hollow inanity on my own ears, to be wafted back to those bandy-legged cynics and be laughed over by them in the seclusion of the stable. I heaved a sigh of relief when we pulled up in the _porte-cochère_ at the Hall and I was in the hands of those I knew, with Radigan and the Rollers Club fellows just back from golf, with Miss Veal and--the surprise of all--Miss Angelica Van Rundoun. Her presence was a shock, but she subsequently cleared herself by explaining to me privately that her father had become a customer of Radigan & Co. and had put her up as margins. The last member of the party I met at dinner. She was Miss Constance Mint Wherry, a product of the union of the poor branches of the two fabulously wealthy families whose names she bears. A large woman, weighing well over two hundred pounds, with an extensive area of neck and shoulders, decorated with rusty-looking jewels, she was an imposing figure. I was awed, though she could not have been more gracious. She spoke of Williegilt as "Bobbie" and told us what she said to him at the horse-show and what he said to her, which caused Radigan to burst in with the remark that "Bobbie" was a "lovely fellow--a lovely fel-low," and Mrs. Radigan ventured demurely that she was going to have him down for a week-end--she "liked him so much." Miss Wherry took to me very rapidly. She said that I was so original, which of course pleased me tremendously, till she spoiled it all by declaring that "society men" bored her--they were so vapid. I could not see but what my tie and collar matched those of the Rollers Club fellows, and the only outward difference I could discern between us was that when they _did_ talk, they talked very loud, and when they _did not_ talk, they drank much more than I.