Mrs. Raymond Prince vaguely pronounced their house "amusing." It had, like Adele McComas herself, a provocative dash which fell in with her present mood, and it pleased her that its chatelaine was inclined to dress up to its wayward sofas and hangings. She even went with Mrs. Johnny on shopping tours and abetted her as her fancies, desires and expenditures ran riot. It was a mood of irresponsibility--almost of defiant irresponsibility. Now was the nascent day of the country club. Several of these welcome institutions had lately set themselves up in a modest, tentative way. Acceptance was complete, and all they had to do was to grow. With one of these McComas cast his lot. At the start it was a simple enough affair; but Johnny must have sensed its potentialities and savored its affinities, its coming congruity with himself. It was to become, shortly, a club for the suddenly, violently rich, the flushed with dollars, the congested with prosperity--for newcomers who had met Success and beaten her at her own game. Stir on all hands, the reek of sudden felicity in the air. In later years people with access to better things of similar sort were known to become indignant when asked to associate themselves with it. "Why should _I_ want to join _that_?" was the question they put. But it pleased Johnny McComas, both by its present manifestations and its latent possibilities. It was richly in unison with his own nature, and I believe he had a ravishing vision of its magnificent futurities. Last year my wife and I were taken to a Sunday afternoon concert out there. We found a place of towers and arcades, of endless corridors planted with columns and numberless chairs in numberless varieties, of fountained courts, of ball-rooms, of concert-halls, of gay apparel and cool drinks. We heard of fairs, horse-shows, tournaments in golf and tennis. The restaurant, with its acre of tables, glassed and naperied; the ranges of telephone booths, all going it together; the cellars, a vast subterrene, with dusky avenues of lockers, each cluttered with beverages of individual predilection--though I suppose that, after all, they were a good deal alike.... Well, it was too much for us; and my Elsie, who is essentially the lady, if woman ever was, came away feeling a little dowdy and a good deal out of date. At that earlier period, however, it was still simple; the germ was there, but the development of its possibilities had only begun. When Mrs. McComas invited Mrs. Prince to drive out with her and see some tennis, Mrs. Prince was quite ready to accept.