Lionel often sat in his library pondering over all kinds of abstruse questions. He did not know his old London again, and smiled at the revolution in social life. Nowadays, one house was as good as another. Mrs So-and-So’s luncheon parties, Lady X.’s dinners and bridge _réunions_ were no longer sought for, since frocks and frills had vanished and packs of cards crumbled to dust. Dancing also was impossible under the present _régime_, for the _laisser-aller_ of a ball-room seemed intolerable in the new Paradise regained. In fact, no respectable mother would consent to take her daughter to any of these brawls. Lionel recalled the first—and the last—ball of this season. It was at Lady Wimberley’s. When the ball opened, the hurry and scurry of London apes was such, that he had turned to his faithful guide and told him,— “Nothing on earth would induce me to dance this evening—or ever. Not even with Gwen.” “Especially not with Miss Towerbridge,” had replied the funny little buffoon. “Happiness has no need to bump, elbow or kick, to manifest its gladness.” They had both left the house, and given the hint to London Society. And thus the fashion for balls, late dinners, evening receptions died out, as smart women lost the taste for such vulgar dissipations. Lionel laughed outright at Lady Carey’s remark that the end of the world was nigh, for Society was perishing from dulness. Still, all the fussiness of the little woman could not alter the bare fact that it was quite unnecessary to turn night into day, since the days were quite long enough to contain the occupations of the present Society. Complexion and figure greatly benefited from this normal mode of life; and the absence of corset and waistcoat urged the English man and woman to watch over their diet, if they did not intend to turn their bodies into living advertisements of their passions and depravities. Had anyone told Lionel a year ago what London would be like at the present moment, he would no doubt have burst into Homeric laughter; but now that the thing was done, it all seemed so simple and so rational, that he hardly realised it. It amused him very much to see daily, at the Pall Mall Committee of Public Kitchens, Lord Petersham conversing with a well-known butcher of Belgravia. But Petersham, whatever he may have thought, dissembled artfully, and argued with himself that they were both, he and the butcher, sitting on the Board to judge of the quality of the meat—and who would be more likely to judge impartially of the catering than a butcher, especially when he consumed the victuals each day.