"My dear, I assure you that propriety demands--" "Well, well; I'll go, I'll go." Then silence fell. Not another word was spoken. I waited to hear the man's name, but it didn't come. My heart beat a little quicker as I stood there in expectancy--in fact, I distinctly heard its tick-tack. I stood two or three minutes, but as they did not think fit to resume the conversation, I entered, and had to pretend to know nothing. But I did know something, and that something was of importance, too. He is a member of the "Jockey." To me that means everything. If I attach too much importance to it, it is papa's fault, for he thinks that any one who is not a member of the Jockey is simply nobody. The world, as far as papa is concerned, begins with the Jockey, and ends at those who are not of the charmed circle. I have been brought up with those ideas. My husband must be a member of the Jockey. Well, the three of us set off in the landau--papa gloomy, depressed, silent; mama in the same state of eager excitement; I outwardly cool and indifferent, but thinking hard all the same. What could be the meaning of so much mystery? This gentleman has seen me on horseback, and had though I was bewitching, which was very sweet of him. Was it he who had asked to see me in a brilliantly-lighted room--_décolletée_? That, it seemed to me, was scarcely the correct thing. He ought to have been shown to _me_ before I was so liberally shown to him on horseback and on foot. But, after all, it didn't matter much. We got to the Mercerey's at half-past ten. I was very sorry for papa, for it really was a _soirée musicale_, and there was a quartet, too, which is about the most trying thing in the world for one who does not care for music, and has not been broken in into bearing it. In addition, the music was highly and wearily classical. There were not many people present--only about a score. The company was very mixed, and it was evident that the affair had been arranged in a hurry, for the people seemed to have been picked up haphazard, with no thought for their peculiarities and idiosyncrasies--nobody knew anybody, and there was an evident lack of sympathy. We entered just when the andante movement of a sonata was in full swing, and we went on tiptoe to seats. I settled myself snugly in a quiet corner and cast a rapid, furtive glance round the battlefield. At first I only saw a few old men--_blasé_ looking individuals--evidently not for me. Then, in the opposite corner, I noticed a little knot of four young men. There could be no doubt that there was the enemy. Yes, but which of the four? In my simplicity I thought: "It must be he who is looking at me most devotedly and attentively." I modestly lowered my eyes, and assumed the attitude of a saint listening with inward rapture to the austere strains of a Haydn sonata.