Lady Kirkbank and all Lady Kirkbank’s friends seemed to have conspired to teach Lesbia Haselden one lesson, and that lesson meant that money was the first prize in the great game of life.  Money ranked before everything—­before titles, before noble lineage, genius, fame, beauty, courage, honour.  Money was Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.  Mr. Smithson, whose antecedents were as cloudy as those of Aphrodite, was a greater man than a peer whose broad acres only brought him two per cent., or half of whose farms were tenantless, and his fields growing cockle instead of barley.

Yes, one by one, Lady Lesbia’s illusions were reft from her.  A year ago she had fancied beauty all-powerful, a gift which must ensure to its possessor dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth.  Rank, intellect, fame would bow down before that magical diadem.  And, behold, she had been shining upon London society for seven weeks, and only empty heads and empty pockets had bowed down—­the frivolous, the ineligible,—­and Mr. Smithson.

Another illusion which had been dispelled was Lesbia’s comfortable idea of her own expectations.  Her grandmother had told her that she might take rank among heiresses; and she had held herself accordingly, deeming that her place was among the wealthiest.  And now, since Mr. Smithson’s appearance upon the scene, Lady Kirkbank had informed her young friend with noble candour that Lady Maulevrier’s fortune, however large it might seem at Grasmere, would be a poor thing in London; and that Lady Maulevrier’s ideas about money were as old-fashioned as her notions about morals.

’Life is about six times as expensive as it was in your grandmother’s time.’ said Lady Kirkbank, as the carriage rolled softly along the shabby road between Knightsbridge and Fulham.  ’It is the pace that kills.  Society, which used to jog along comfortably, like the old Brighton stage, at ten miles an hour, now goes as fast as the Brighton express.  In my mother’s time poor Lord Byron was held up to the execration of respectable people as the type of cynical profligacy; in my own time people talked about Lord Waterford; but, my dear, the young men now are all Byrons and Waterfords, without the genius of the one or the generosity of the other.  We are all going at steeplechase rate.  Social success without money is impossible.  The rich Americans, the successful Jews, will crowd us out unless we keep pace with them.  Ah, Lesbia, my dear girl, there would be a great future before you if you could only make up your mind to accept Mr. Smithson.’

‘How do you know that he means to propose to me?’ asked Lesbia, mockingly.  ’Perhaps he is only going to behave as he did to Miss Trinder.’