Of course he does get asked a great deal, because he's little more than a snub-cushion--holds any amount of them as easily as pins. Besides he goes to afternoon bores, like Teas and At Homes and Days, for which free and untrammelled men can only be obtained by subterfuge and trick or some extraordinary bribe. To a young man like Bobbie Lawsher afternoon affairs are a sort of happy hunting ground, a social grab bag, where he can never be sure there isn't a dinner invitation, or one for the opera, or a luncheon, to be secured if one is clever and careful. Why, when a woman has a man guest back out at the last moment from a dinner, the first thing she does is to rush off to any At Home, that's going on, with the fairly confident expectation of finding Bobbie Lawsher and making him fill her vacancy. Bobbie has accomplishments of a certain sort, can sing a pretty little song in a pretty little way, and can pass a tea cup without spilling, and drink tea himself, and can hang around when he's wanted, and be got rid of easily when he isn't. He is a sort of society errand boy, and very useful. I take it back about his having accomplishments--a better word for them is _conveniences_! Well, on the other side of Bobbie was Mrs. ----, red in the face, so angry she was asked to meet Madame Romedek, talking with poor Bobbie in a sharp, spasmodic sort of way, as if she were carrying on the conversation with her knife and fork, cutting the sentences into bits, some ignoring and some eating,--and none agreeing with her, or she agreeing with none. Then George Ringold asked, I suppose, for me. I am quite aware that women who are indiscreet themselves think there is "more than meets the eye" between George and me. I am very fond of him, and so is Dick. And he has kissed me, and Dick knows it; but I am sure I need not tell you that is all. On the other side was Romedek, and perhaps I ought to feel complimented, but as, thanks to Mrs. Westington, we didn't succeed in carrying on to a finish any single conversation we started, I don't allow myself to be too flattered. Mrs. W. talked music, of course--the commonplaces of it--such as any well-bred, smart, educated woman of the world knows how to talk nowadays, with perhaps just one good, big, absurd mistake thrown in,--thus, by the grace of humor keeping banality from becoming absolutely fatal. Madame Romedek was rather amusing. She tried to be the lady--which, as she doesn't know how, and only succeeds in being impossibly stupid, must have bored the men on each side of her tremendously. That's where foolish women of that sort spoil their own game. If they would make the best of the bargain, and be frankly a common cocotte _gone right_, they would certainly be more amusing, and might have something like success, at any rate with the men.