“A fox hunt! What for?” “For! Why, what’s any fox hunt for?” “I can’t imagine. They used to be for the purpose of ridding a fox-infested country of a nuisance. Have the foxes been bothering ’em out in Lake Forest?” “Now, Mother, don’t be funny.” He told her about the breakfast. “Well, but it’s so silly, Dirk. It’s smart to copy from another country the things that that country does better than we do. England does gardens and wood-fires and dogs and tweeds and walking shoes and pipes and leisure better than we do. But those luke-warm steamy breakfasts of theirs! It’s because they haven’t gas, most of them. No Kansas or Nebraska farmer’s wife would stand for one of their kitchens—not for a minute. And the hired man would balk at such bacon.” She giggled. “Oh, well, if you’re going to talk like that.” But Dallas O’Mara felt much the same about these things. Dallas, it appeared, had been something of a fad with the North Shore society crowd after she had painted Mrs. Robinson Gilman’s portrait. She had been invited to dinners and luncheons and dances, but their doings, she told Dirk, had bored her. “They’re nice,” she said, “but they don’t have much fun. They’re all trying to be something they’re not. And that’s such hard work. The women were always explaining that they lived in Chicago because their husband’s business was here. They all do things pretty well—dance or paint or ride or write or sing—but not well enough. They’re professional amateurs, trying to express something they don’t feel; or that they don’t feel strongly enough to make it worth while expressing.” She admitted, though, that they did appreciate the things that other people did well. Visiting and acknowledged writers, painters, lecturers, heroes, they entertained lavishly and hospitably in their Florentine or English or Spanish or French palaces on the north side of Chicago, Illinois. Especially foreign notables of this description. Since 1918 these had descended upon Chicago (and all America) like a plague of locusts, starting usually in New York and sweeping westward, devouring the pleasant verdure of greenbacks and chirping as they came. Returning to Europe, bursting with profits and spleen, they thriftily wrote of what they had seen and the result was more clever than amiable; bearing, too, the taint of bad taste. North Shore hostesses vied for the honour of entertaining these notables. Paula—pretty, clever, moneyed, shrewd—often emerged from these contests the winner. Her latest catch was Emile Goguet—General Emile Goguet, hero of Champagne—Goguet of the stiff white beard, the empty left coat-sleeve, and the score of medals. He was coming to America ostensibly to be the guest of the American Division which, with Goguet’s French troops, had turned the German onslaught at Champagne, but really, it was whispered, to cement friendly relations between his country and a somewhat diffident United States.