That evening Lionel sat up late in his library planning in his mind the organisation of the new Society of social guides. He frequently interrupted his work to look up at his father’s portrait; his type was not unlike hundreds of men he had seen during the day, and he wondered how he could recognise his own father were he alive? Would not the latter have been slightly bewildered in this Babel? Would not his pedantic theories on good breeding receive a shock were he now to step out of his frame and take a stroll through the streets of London? Towards two o’clock in the morning the Earl had memorised the whole synopsis of the new Society, to be launched under the gracious patronage of the Earl of A.B.C. and of Her Grace the Duchess of X.Y.Z., and he retired to his pallet of plaited rushes with a sigh of contentment at the prospect of a new spectacular show, and with a sense of relief at the thought that Gwendolen was lost to him, more irrevocably lost in this general unmasking than if a vessel had foundered on a rock, leaving her on a desert island. In a few days London resumed its usual occupations; we cannot say that it looked quite the same, but Society apparently was in the swing once more. How could it be otherwise, when the flowers were in full bloom, the birds were warbling and the sun was shining? The brittle veneer of false modesty had crumbled under the power of necessity, and the inside of a fortnight had witnessed the downfall of prudery. No scandal ever reached two weeks’ duration; how could a virtuous craze have outlived it? Very different would it have been had half London appeared clad, while the other half remained unclothed; the contrast would have been offensive, and have called for wrathful indignation; but as everyone was in the same way, unquestioned submission became a virtue as well as a necessity. Thus argued Society, for the hard blow dealt by the infuriated elements was fast healing, and the ex-fashionable and would-be smart people hailed Lord Somerville’s new plan with enthusiasm. There was a great demand for social guides, a feverish excitement to take lessons at once in the art of observation, and a rush to attend lectures on physiognomy. At first curiosity was a powerful stimulant. “It would be ripping,” thought the Society girl, “to find out whether Lady Lilpot and Lady Brownrigg’s figures, which were so admired last season, were really _bona-fide_, or only the fabrics of padding and whalebone.” But very soon laziness damped their former ardour, and once more Society, ever incorrigible in its taste for ready-made pleasure, started the fashion of having social guides attached to their respective households. Had not ladies of fashion, men about town, formerly needed the services of French maids and experienced valets? It goes without saying that after the storm the constant attendance of these two custodians of the wardrobe were more irksome than pleasant, for they