Enjoying his triumphs in the way in question, he followed Lady Tilney from room to room--even to the steps of her carriage, assuring her as they proceeded, that her apprehensions of being detected in his society were compliments to him beyond price; he was aware that, to be of importance, the next thing to being liked, was being feared--and bidding her be sure to send him a card for her next choice _soirée_, he handed his victim into her carriage, under a thousand half-pronounced inuendos upon his insufferable vulgarity, and the awful anathema of future exclusion. CHAPTER IV. A MODERN COTERIE. If any circumstance had been wanting to give strength to Lady Tilney's resolves on the momentous question of social reform, the occurrences at Lady Feuillemerte's were in themselves sufficient--at least, they formed an addition to that kind of plausible excuse, sought for on all occasions where the will is previously set on a particular line of conduct, but which, without a pretext, it would hardly be safe for the individual to adopt. The motley and unkindred assemblage of the previous evening, with its royal restraints, its want of organization in its inferior members, and the consequent offences experienced by those of higher order--for Lady Tilney, although she did not divulge the stain inflicted by Colonel Temple's assiduities, yet felt it deeply,--were points she dwelt upon to her colleagues in the following morning with that extreme pathos and eloquence which the sufferings of self never fail to produce, and which could not but enforce on her auditors conviction of the necessity of the measures she proposed. Closeted, therefore, with the leading characters in her own peculiar circle, the final arrangements for that _société choisie_ which was to eclipse courts and banish sovereigns, to school rank, and bring to maturity all the yet unripened follies of a _soi-disant ton_, were at length concluded. The lists were full--the doors were closed to all but the secret representatives of the system, and the anathema went forth. Strange that St. James's did not shake from its foundation, England's sovereign resign his sceptre, and her lengthened line of nobility crouch in the dust, under the awful denunciation of such an ascendancy. But though this were not so--yet must the loyalty of many a high-born subject, and the purity of many a noble and virtuous mind, have been outraged, when the results of a system at once so contemptuous and immoral began to be developed.