'Fan' refined under the influence of this clearer vision and sounder judgment; how short a time elapsed before the people who talked their own slang, and strove for their own vapid and worthless objects, but strove for them inside, not outside, the indefinable but irresistible barrier of fashion, came to acknowledge, with some wonder, that Mrs. Chadwick was 'hardly vulgar at all.' She would not, as a matter of fact, have been flattered had she been aware of the concession; and yet she might well have been, considering the victory it endorsed, and the habitual insolence of the class who made it. When the time appointed for the marriage drew near, and people began to know, about it, Mrs. Chadwick was surprised to find that Mrs. Hamblin, of all people in the world, looked on the arrangement with cold disapproval. That lady had been too wise to drop her surface-intimacy with Mrs. Chadwick when her purpose with regard to Spiridion Pratt was fulfilled. Its fulfilment had not been attended with any triumph or profit to herself; she was intensely conscious of her defeat, but she was all the more resolute to hide it. Even when the replacement of Spiridion was in process of accomplishment, she did not choose to lose sight of him, and she knew that, unless she continued to visit Mrs. Chadwick, she must do so; for the little man had established himself on the tame-cat footing at Fairfax-gardens, and was imperturbably impervious to remark or ridicule. Eleanor Irvine had refused to marry him, it was true, and it was even true also that he had, in a surprisingly short time, arrived at the conclusion that she had done wisely; but there was no earthly reason why Eleanor, who suited him, being nice to look at and pleasant to talk to, very agreeable and not oppressively clever--Spiridion hated _very_ clever women--should not be the friend of his 'soul.' Eleanor had no objection, especially as this sentimental arrangement did not impose any severe demands upon her time and attention, and as it did prevent the pretty constant presence of Sir Nugent from being unduly remarked upon before the convenient season.