He soon anchored himself in the ‘ampler ether’ of town. He did not take any steps to cultivate his brother in the Foreign Office or his brother’s friends, but at once began to establish a position with such friends of his mother who had town-houses. He was not in any hurry to do this, and after he had been asked to tea twice, but never to any more substantial entertainment by one of these, he refused his third similar invitation, since perpetually going to tea was not a sufficiently substantial reward for his bowings and pipings. On the fourth occasion he was asked to lunch, and being put next a most disagreeable cousin of his hostess’s who had come up to town for the day in order to alter her will, he made himself so perfectly charming to her that his hostess, in a spasm of gratitude, asked him to go to the opera with her the week after. This he very kindly consented to do, and having good eyes and an excellent memory was able to point out to her from the box several of the mighty ones of the earth, whose portraits he had seen in picture-papers. He did not exactly say he knew any of them, but went so far as hinting as much. ‘There is old Lady Birmingham,’ he said, remembering what he had read that morning. ‘Look, she has the big tiara on. She gave a huge party last night with a cotillion. I suppose you were there, weren’t you? No; I couldn’t go. Such a lot on, isn’t there, just now?’ His hostess, Mrs. Theobald, one of those industrious climbers who are for ever mounting the stairs which, like the treadmill, bring them no higher at all, was rather impressed by this. It was also gratifying to find that Leonard supposed that she had been to Lady Birmingham’s party, which she would have given one if not both of her fine eyes to have been invited to. Of course she said that she hadn’t been able to go either, which was perfectly true, since she hadn’t been asked, and enquired who the woman with the amazing emeralds was. There again Leonard was lucky, for in the same paper he had read that Mrs. Cyrus M. Plush had been at Lady Birmingham’s party, wearing her prodigious emeralds, five rows of them and a girdle. It was exceedingly unlikely that anybody else had five rows and a girdle, as this new-comer into the box opposite certainly had, and he replied with great glibness: ‘Oh, Mrs. Cyrus Plush. Just look at her emeralds. How convenient if you were drinking _crème de menthe_ and spilt it. People would only think that it was another emerald. I don’t think she’s really very good-looking, do you?’