"Do you mean me individually, or is the question intended to include the social world in general?" "Both--the latter first, if you don't mind; it will comprehend much of the former." "Hum!" muttered Devereux. "I suppose that is meant to be courteous, Harry, but I don't know. Well, the main thing that we have been doing, we've been doing to ourselves--making damn fools of ourselves, to be accurate." "That is interesting!" laughed Lorraine. "How did we manage to do it?" "It doesn't require management to do it," the other remarked, draining his glass. "The management is required when we _don't_ do it--only, on this particular occasion, we have been more than ordinarily successful at the damn-fool business." "What have we done now?" Lorraine asked. "Break it gently, Devereux, break it gently!" "We've been taking up that bounder Porshinger. By _we_ I mean Society. We have been helping--no we've actually been dragging him up the wall with the gold chains and the gold ladder he has provided. Did you ever know such--asininity?" "It's pretty bad," Lorraine agreed; "though I reckon it was about due. Porshinger was bound to get in so long as he didn't marry wrong, though I didn't think _we_ would _lift_ him over the wall. How do you explain it?" "Naturally enough!" Devereux snorted. "Everyone was waiting for someone to start--but everyone was afraid to start. Then Gladys Chamberlain started--and the rest of the women followed like a lot of geese." "Like a lot of geese is good," said Lorraine. "Society is like nothing so much as geese, in such matters. Yet what surprises me is that Gladys Chamberlain should take him up. She doesn't need his money, and it isn't possible that she likes him. I don't think she even knew him, certainly not more than to bow to, when I went on the injured list. Why is it, do you suppose?" "It occurred suddenly down at Criss-Cross. Some of us were there for the week-end; Porshinger was at the Woodsides'. Gladys announced at dinner that she was going to have him over, and asked our opinion. We gave it to her, Burgoyne and Cameron and Pendleton and I, but it didn't faze in the least. He came. We were courteous to him, of course. He was unassuming, but talked shop to the women beside him all through dinner--and there you are! The Rubicon was crossed." "But _why_ did Gladys do it?" "Search me!" Devereux exclaimed. "She is the last one to act on impulse in such a matter." "Search me!" Devereux reiterated, with a lift of his hands. "Only, you don't want to try to explain things by the reasonable route--you won't succeed, Harry. Woman isn't a reasonable creature. She's an exotic, an eccentric, who doesn't always eccent." "Is that a discovery?" asked Lorraine. "Not at all," retorted Devereux. "It's a self-evident fact, that is why I told you. Understand?" "Have another high-ball?" laughed Lorraine.