“The Evanses used to be a lot funnier than they are now,” continued Mrs. Winnie, after a while. “When they came here last year, they were really frightful. They had an English chap for social secretary—a younger son of some broken-down old family. My brother knew a man who had been one of their intimates in the West, and he said it was perfectly excruciating—this fellow used to sit at the table and give orders to the whole crowd: ‘Your ice-cream fork should be at your right hand, Miss Mary.—One never asks for more soup, Master Robert.—And Miss Anna, always move your soup-spoon _from_ you—that’s better!’” “I fancy I shall feel sorry for them,” said Montague. “Oh, you needn’t,” said the other, promptly. “They’ll get what they want.” “Do you think so?” “Why, certainly they will. They’ve got the money; and they’ve been abroad—they’re learning the game. And they’ll keep at it until they succeed—what else is there for them to do? And then my husband says that old Evans is making himself a power here in the East; so that pretty soon they won’t dare offend him.” “Does that count?” asked the man. “Well, I guess it counts!” laughed Mrs. Winnie. “It has of late.” And she went on to tell him of the Society leader who had dared to offend the daughters of a great magnate, and how the magnate had retaliated by turning the woman’s husband out of his high office. That was often the way in the business world; the struggles were supposed to be affairs of men, but oftener than not the moving power was a woman’s intrigue. You would see a great upheaval in Wall Street, and it would be two of the big men quarrelling over a mistress; you would see some man rush suddenly into a high office—and that would be because his wife had sold herself to advance him. Mrs. Winnie took him up town in her auto, and he dressed for dinner; and then came Oliver, and his brother asked, “Are you trying to put the Evanses into Society?” “Who’s been telling you about them?” asked the other. “Mrs. Winnie,” said Montague. “What did she tell you?” Montague went over her recital, which his brother apparently found satisfactory. “It’s not as serious as that,” he said, answering the earlier question. “I help them a little now and then.” “What do you do?” “Oh, advise them, mostly—tell them where to go and what to wear. When they first came to New York, they were dressed like paraquets, you know. And”—here Oliver broke into a laugh—“I refrain from making jokes about them. And when I hear other people abusing them, I point out that they are sure to land in the end, and will be dangerous enemies. I’ve got one or two wedges started for them.” “And do they pay you for doing it?” “You’d call it paying me, I suppose,” replied the other. “The old man carries a few shares of stock for me now and then.”