“Nonsense, Mildred!” I cried. “I have seen a hundred times as much of society as you have, and I can say that the greatest boon in the way of novelty would be a little bit of the independence and freshness so natural to you. You are a woman to whom real things mean something. You are earnest. You like to talk about earnest things, and why should you feel obliged to condescend to the level of society small talk and meaningless compliments?” “Oh, I don’t propose to be a hypocrite,” said Mildred, with a little amused laugh, at my unaccustomed vehemence in this line of thought. She sat for a minute absently picking in pieces the Jacqueminot rose in her corsage; then she said, “But you know, Ruby, there is such a thing as being a doctrinaire and a dull dogmatist, and, on the other hand, being full of tact and sympathy and wit, accomplishing the best results in an indirect way, when no amount of direct preaching could do it. A woman of character can make even her small talk a tremendous power if she only knows how to go to work. “I want to be a power, I honestly confess that, but I have little worldly wisdom, and I have much to learn. I have lived in a world of books and ideas, and now I am thrown into this perplexing, brilliant, kaleidoscopic world of society, and I feel as unsophisticated as a girl of sixteen.” “But there is plenty of homage given you,” I remarked. “You were the envy of every woman in the room the other night when Lord H—— took you out to dinner.” “Homage to _me_? Homage to my money, you ought to say,” replied Mildred, with a touch of bitterness, as she shook the rose-leaves from her lap into the waste-basket. “I wore opals and satin, and am, as the papers say, a ‘great catch;’ but how much attention do you suppose my lord would have paid me six months ago if he had met me running down Joy Street with my bag of books, to take a Cambridge car?” “But plenty of women are admired who are not rich,” I remarked; “it doesn’t follow”— “No,” said Mildred, breaking in impetuously; “but women are not admired for their real worth. It always used to madden me to see how the nice, sensible girls, who really had original ideas and could say something worth saying, were always left to be the wall-flowers. “Nine men out of ten actually like a little, helpless doll of a creature who can talk by the hour and say nothing; and they don’t care for a brave, self-helpful girl who has any independence of spirit, and who does not flatter a man by demanding his attention and referring to his opinion on every subject which requires more thought than crocheting or tennis.