Over the wall Mrs. Venables swept like a wave of the sea. She saw nothing; but, whatever she had seen, she would not have been deterred, but the more impelled. When she did see--if ever she saw--it would be an impression of the first order, most immensely striking. What she at present saw was that the Crevequers had become unsociable; three weeks had been enough to throw them so entirely back upon their old friends and their old amusements that the new friends, with their atmosphere so widely different, had slid to a great distance, and were not welcomed. 'Atmosphere counts for a good deal. We have not, perhaps, made allowance enough for the strain--for it is a strain--of stepping out of one atmosphere into another. It takes time.' Prudence Varley said: 'Only, when you don't step out at all, but carry your own atmosphere about with you, the strain is less. The Crevequers have always seemed, anyhow, to bear up under it.' Since the Crevequers, finding the strain too great, refused to come to the atmosphere, the atmosphere came to them. It was carried by Mrs. Venables and Miranda; it spread itself over the sitting-room while Mrs. Venables talked. Mrs. Venables wanted another social evening in the Vicolo Fiori. 'Yes,' said Betty. 'I'll l-let people know.' (She was stammering horribly to-day.) 'But--but I'm afraid I shall be busy myself.' Since the evening had not been specified, this was rather too manifestly a brick in the wall. Mrs. Venables pointed it out, with 'Every night, my dear?' and a lift of the brows. Betty held to it. 'And--and every day as well. We're very busy just now, Tommy and I.' They had become bored with the new atmosphere; they wanted to throw it wholly off, and be left in peace with their less reputable friends; this Mrs. Venables deduced, with displeasure now rising. 'I think,' she said, 'that it is to be regretted--very much to be regretted.' Her tone dragged in to be regretted so very much more than the mere fact--the only one offered her--of the Crevequers' excess of occupation, that Betty's dark brows flickered nervously, resentfully, as if she feared something. Miranda's round eyes beamed with sympathy. The desire to avoid another social evening with the very poor was wholly within the sphere of her comprehension. 'It's a rotten game; I hate it,' she observed. Mrs. Venables spoke to her quite sharply for once on the subject of limitations of interest and ungracefulness of speech. Miranda, indeed, was a little in the way at the moment; she made intimate approach difficult. Then Tommy came in, with Luli clinging to his arm. Both were so dishevelled, so flushed, so hilarious, that only one supposition was tenable. Mrs. Venables held it, and her eyes grew still more inclusive in their regret. She did not realize that it took really very little to excite the Crevequers and Luli.