What ever else can be said of cotton-batting, however, it is hardly a topic of smart conversation. So in smart circles there was never any mention of cotton-batting when the name of Neargood came up. Instead, it was customary to refer to them as "the people, you know, who built the Equator Palace for the Tropical Government, and all that sort of thing." A certain vagueness is indispensable to polite talk. Yet not even this detail of politics and finance counted most in the smart world. The name of Neargood might never have been heard of in that world if it had not been for the beautiful daughters of the house of Neargood. There is nothing, nowadays, like having handsome daughters. You may have made your millions in pig, or your thousands in whisky, but, in the eyes of the complaisant present, the curse dies with the debut of a beautiful daughter. It is true that the smart sometimes make an absurd distinction between the older generation and the new; sometimes a barrier is raised for the daughter that checks the mother; but caprice was ever one of the qualities of smartness. Through two seasons the beautiful Misses Neargood--Mary and Alice--reigned as belles. They were both good to look at, tall, stately, with distinct profiles. There was not much to choose, so to put it, between them. Mary was the handsomer; Alice the cleverer. Through two seasons the society reporters, on the newspapers that are yellow as well as those that make one blue, exhausted the well of journalese in chronicling the doings of these two young women. The climax of descriptive eloquence was reached on the occasion of the double wedding of Mary and Alice Neargood. Mary changed the name of Neargood for that of Spalding-Wentworth; Alice became Mrs. Van Fenno. Up to this time--as far, at least, as was observable--these two sisters had dwelt together in unity. Never had the spirits of envy or uncharitableness entered them. But after marriage there came to each of them that stormy petrel of Unhappiness, Ambition. As a composer of several songs and light operas. Van Fenno was fairly well known. Spalding-Wentworth was known as a man of Western wealth, of Western blue blood, and of prominence in the smart set. For some time the worldly successes of the Van Fennos did not disturb Mrs. Spalding-Wentworth at all. Her husband was smart, since he moved with the smart; he and his hyphen were the leaders in a great many famous ways, notably in fashion and in golf. From the smart point of view the Van Fennos were not in the hunt with the other family. Mrs. Van Fenno chafed and churned a little in silence, but hope did not die in her. She made up her mind to be as prominent as her sister or perish in the attempt.