The young men sit in the clubs and in the summer casinos, smoking and wondering what the new mode in trousers is to be; an acquaintance goes by; he has a hat that is not quite correct, and his friends comment on it yawningly; he has not the faintest notion of polite English, but nobody cares; a man who has written great things walks by, but he wears a creased coat, and the young men in the smoking-room sniff at him. In the drags and the yachts the women and the girls sit in radiance and gay colors and arrogant unconsciousness of position and power; they talk of golfing and fashion and mustachios; Mrs. Blank is going a hot pace and Mrs. Landthus is a thoroughbred; adjectives in the newest sporting slang fly about blindingly; the language is a curious argot, as distinct as the tortuous lingo of the Bowery. A coach goes rattling by, the horses throwing their heads in air, and their feet longing for the Westchester roads. The whip discusses bull-terriers; the people behind him are declaring that the only thing you can possibly find in the Waldorf rooms is an impossible lot of people. The complexions of all these people, intellectually presentable in many ways, and fashionable in yet more modes, are high in health. They look happy, prosperous and satisfied.... Yes, there was a superficial fairness to the picture, Vane admitted. If only, if only, he had not chosen to look under the surface! Now that he had seen the world with other eyes, its fairness could rarely seem the same to him. A sturdy beggar approached him, with a whine that proved him an admirable actor. But Vane could not find it in him to reflect that if there is one thing more than another that lends distinction to a town it is an abundance of beggars. He wondered how it would be to annex this healthy impostor's mite of a soul. But no; there could be little wisdom gained there. He made, finally, for the Town and Country Club, and tried to immerse himself in the conversation that sped about. The talked turned to the eminent actor, Arthur Wantage. The subject of that man's alleged eccentricities invariably brought out a flood of the town's stalest anecdotes. Vane, listening in a lazy mood, made up his mind to see Wantage play that night. It would be a distraction. It would show him, once again, the present limit in one human being's portraiture of another; he would see the highest point to which external imitation could be brought; he could contrast it with the heights to which he himself had ascended. It would be a chance for him to consider Wantage, for the first time in his life, as a merely second-rate actor. This player was an adept only in the making the shell, the husk, seem lifelike; since he could not read the character, how could he go deeper? The opportunities the theatre held for him suddenly loomed vast before Vane. CHAPTER XIII.