“It is impossible to imagine any time for a young man more propitious than the present, or any society more agreeable than London.  Morals, as the newspapers would say, are in abeyance, conscience is looked upon as pedantic, especially in women, and unbecoming.”  As the two walked up St. James’ Street together, Harding noticed that Owen, notwithstanding his chatter about morals, was thinking of Evelyn, and took very little interest in the display of the season—­in the slim nobility of England, fresh from Oxford, all in frock coats for the first time, delighting in canes, and deerskin gloves, in collars and ties, the newest fashion, going down the street in pairs, turning into their clubs, lifting their hats to the women who drove past in victorias and electric broughams.

“Never were women more charming than they are now,” Owen said, in order not to appear too much immersed in his own thoughts, and he picked a woman out, pretending to be interested in her.  “That one leaning a little to the left, her white dog sitting beside her.”

“Like a rose in Maytime.”

“Rather an orchid in a crystal glass.”

Harding accepted the correction.

“Do you know who she is, Harding?”

The question was a thoughtless one, for no one knows the whole of the peerage, not even Harding, and it was painful for him to admit that he did not know the lady, who happened to be an earl’s daughter—­ somebody he really should have known.  Not having been born a peer himself, he had, as a friend once said, resolved to make amends for the mistake in his birth by never knowing anybody who hadn’t a title.  But this criticism was not a just one; Harding was not a snob.  It has already been explained that love of order and tradition were part of his nature; the reader remembers, no doubt, Harding’s idiosyncrasies, and how little interested he was in writers, and painters, avoiding always the society of such people.  But his face brightened presently, for a very distinguished woman bowed to him, and he was glad to tell Owen he was going to stay with her in the autumn.  The Duchess had just returned from Palestine, and it was beginning to be whispered she had gone there with a young man.  The talk turned again on the morality of London, and exciting stories were told of a fracas which had occurred between two well-known men.  So their desks had been broken open, and packets of love letters abstracted.  New scandals were about to break to blossom, other scandals had been nipped in the bud.

Harding said nothing wittier had been said for many generations than the mot credited to a young girl, who had described a ball given that season by the women of forty as “The Hags’ Hop.”  Somebody else had called it “The Roaring Forties.”  Which was the better description of the two?  “The Roaring Forties” seemed a little pretentious, and preference was given to the more natural epigram, “The Hags’ Hop.”

“We were all virtuous in the fifties, now licence has reached its prime, and we shall fall back soon into decadence.”