It was a pity, indeed, that that new house could not be finished in time. If money could have completed it, there would have been no question, but Coppe & Coppe, the architects, said they had to have at least three months to build such a palace. The designs alone took them ten days, so there was nothing to do but to have the affair at Flurry's. It is difficult at a public place like that to take from a private affair the air of one of these subscription things, for there is no change of scene, no change of actors, and were you not versed in socialology you could not tell Mrs. Plumstone's dance from one of those Wednesdays or Thursdays. So Mrs. Radigan was handicapped from the start; but she made a masterly stroke by giving the champagne contract to Willie Lite, making it his interest to gather in as many of his friends as possible. It was there that she won the battle, I suspect, and her calm demeanor in those awful minutes preceding the arrival of the first guests came, I believe, from her absolute faith in him. Radigan was terribly nervous. He said it would break his heart if all his polo in the fall, all his countless knocks and bruises and tumbles were to go for nothing, and the first of their annual balls be the last. They had a dinner at home to a few of their "close friends," which included about one dozen, and nearly everybody they knew. The Williegilts and Miss Bumpschus had declined, which looked ominous, and the outlook was still darker when we arrived on the field of battle on the minute of ten, and for an hour had the great rooms to ourselves. There is nothing more depressing than the ballroom where, to the music of a big orchestra, a half-dozen men and women are cavorting around in lonely state. Dancing made easy is dancing made uninteresting, for take away the jam of whirling figures, the sweep of bedraggled trains beneath the feet, the stab of elbows, and the wild plunges of the nimbler footed, and you take away the dangers that make the sport.