How listless I am, turning from my sorrow to write of what to most girls would be a delight--of that pathetic little figure, toadied and flattered, but keeping a good heart through it all; of his marked attentions, which I permit because they keep other men away; of his efforts to see me--for the Van Dams' position isn't what I imagined it, and we are not invited to many houses where I could meet him; of Meg's rejoicings over a few of the cards we do receive. Oh, I win her triumphs, triumphs in plenty! Because the Earl admires me, hasn't she once sat at the same table with Mrs. Sloane Schuyler, who refuses to meet intimately more than a hundred New York women; and hasn't she twice or thrice talked "autos" with Mrs. Fredericks; and isn't she envied by all the women of her own set because the Earl and his cousin shine refulgent from her box at the Opera? Triumphs, certainly; doesn't Mrs. Henry wrangle with Meg over my poor body, demanding that I sit in her box, and that I join Peggy's Badminton club, and bring the Earl, who would bring the youths and maidens who would bring the prestige that would, some day, make a Newport cottage socially feasible? That's her dream, Meg's is Mayfair; she thinks of nothing but how to invest me in London and claim her profit when I am Strathay's Countess, or mistress of some other little great man's hall. Oh, I understand them; Mrs. Henry's the worst; oily! I wonder if London is less petty than New York; if I should be out of the tug and scramble there. But I mustn't judge New York, viewing it through the Van Dams' eyes. If I did, I should see a curious pyramid. At the top, a sole and unapproachable figure, the twelfth Earl of Strathay, just out of school; Next a society, two-thirds of whose daughters will marry abroad, and to all of whose members an Earl's lack of a wife is a burning issue; Hanging by their skirts a thousand others, like the General and Mrs. Henry, available for big functions, pushing to get into the little ones; Hanging by these in turn, ten thousand others outside the pale, but flinging money right and left in charity or prodigality to catch the eyes of those who catch the eyes of those who nod to Earls; And after them nobody! And the problem: "How high can we climb?" Why, there are twenty thousand families in New York rich enough to be Elect, if wealth were all. I could almost marry Strathay to save him from the ugly millioned girls! How they hate me! I know what love is like, now; Strathay means to speak. If Ned would only--but three weeks--three long, long weeks, and he doesn't--oh, I won't believe that, deep in his heart he does not love me. It's not time--not time, yet, to think about the little Earl!