When Mrs. Oldname calls on Mrs. Stranger the first time, the latter may do nothing but call in return; it would be the height of presumption to invite one of conspicuous prominence until she has first been invited by her.  Nor may the Strangers ask the Oldnames to dine after being merely invited to a tea.  But when Mrs. Oldname asks Mrs. Stranger to lunch, the latter might then invite the former to dinner, after which, if they accept, the Strangers can continue to invite them on occasion, whether they are invited in turn or not; especially if the Strangers are continually entertaining, and the Oldnames are not.  But on no account must the Strangers’ parties be arranged solely for the benefit of any particular fashionables.

The Strangers can also invite to a party any children whom their own children know at school, and Mrs. Stranger can quite properly go to fetch her own children from a party to which their schoolmates invited them.

=MONEY NOT ESSENTIAL TO SOCIAL POSITION=

Bachelors, unless they are very well off, are not expected to give parties; nor for that matter are very young couples.  All hostesses go on asking single men and young people to their houses without it ever occurring to them that any return other than politeness should be made.

There are many couples, not necessarily in the youngest set either, who are tremendously popular in society in spite of the fact that they give no parties at all.  The Lovejoys, for instance, who are clamored for everywhere, have every attribute—­except money.  With fewer clothes perhaps than any fashionable young woman in New York, she can’t compete with Mrs. Bobo Gilding or Constance Style for “smartness” but, as Mrs. Worldly remarked:  “What would be the use of Celia Lovejoy’s beauty if it depended upon continual variation in clothes?”

The only “entertaining” the Lovejoys ever do is limited to afternoon tea and occasional welsh-rarebit suppers.  But they return every bit of hospitality shown them by helping to make a party “go” wherever they are.  Both are amusing, both are interesting, both do everything well.  They can’t afford to play cards for money, but they both play a very good game and the table is delighted to “carry them,” or they play at the same table against each other.

This, by the way, is another illustration of the conduct of a gentleman; if young Lovejoy played for money he would win undoubtedly in the long run because he plays unusually well, but to use card-playing as a “means of making money” would be contrary to the ethics of a gentleman, just as playing for more than can be afforded turns a game into “gambling.”

=AN ELUSIVE POINT ESSENTIAL TO SOCIAL SUCCESS=

The sense of whom to invite with whom is one of the most important, and elusive, points in social knowledge.  The possession or lack of it is responsible more than anything else for the social success of one woman, and the failure of another.  And as it is almost impossible, without advice, for any stranger anywhere to know which people like or dislike each other, the would-be hostess must either by means of natural talent or more likely by trained attention, read the signs of liking or prejudice much as a woodsman reads a message in every broken twig or turned leaf.