“I am all wrong,” thought Lawrence Newt, ruefully, as they passed out into the street.

“Abel Newt, then, is Hope Wayne’s somebody,” thought Arthur Merlin, as he took his friend’s arm.

CHAPTER XXXII.

MRS. THEODORE KINGFISHER AT HOME. On dansera.

Society stared when it beheld Miss Hope Wayne entering the drawing-room of Mrs. Theodore Kingfisher.

“Really, Miss Wayne, I am delighted,” said Mrs. Kingfisher, with a smile that might have been made at the same shop with the flowers that nodded over it.

Mrs. Kingfisher’s friendship for Miss Wayne and her charming aunt consisted in two pieces of pasteboard, on which was printed, in German text, “Mrs. Theodore Kingfisher, St. John’s Square,” which she had left during the winter; and her pleasure at seeing her was genuine—­not that she expected they would solace each other’s souls with friendly intercourse, but that she knew Hope to be a famous beauty who had held herself retired until now at the very end of the season, when she appeared for the first time at her ball.

This reflection secured an unusually ardent reception for Mrs. Dagon, who followed Mrs. Dinks’s party, and who, having made her salutation to the hostess, said to Mr. Boniface Newt, her nephew, who accompanied her,

“Now I’ll go and stand by the pier-glass, so that I can rake the rooms.  And, Boniface, mind, I depend upon your getting me some lobster salad at supper, with plenty of dressing—­mind, now, plenty of dressing.”

Perched like a contemplative vulture by the pier, Mrs. Dagon declined chairs and sofas, but put her eye-glass to her eyes to spy out the land.  She had arrived upon the scene of action early.  She always did.

“I want to see every body come in.  There’s a great deal in watching how people speak to each other.  I’ve found out a great many things in that way, my dear, which were not suspected.”

Presently a glass at the other end of the room that was bobbing up and down and about at everybody and thing—­at the ceiling, and the wall, and the carpet—­discovering the rouge upon cheeks whose ruddy freshness charmed less perceptive eyes—­reducing the prettiest lace to the smallest terms in substance and price—­detecting base cotton with one fell glance, and the part of the old dress ingeniously furbished to do duty as new—­this philosophic and critical glass presently encountered Mrs. Dagon’s in mid-career.  The two ladies behind the glasses glared at each other for a moment, then bowed and nodded, like two Chinese idols set up on end at each extremity of the room.

“Good-evening, dear, good Mrs. Winslow Orry,” said the smiling eyes of Mrs. Dagon to that lady.  “How doubly scraggy you look in that worn-out old sea-green satin!” said the smiling old lady to herself.

“How do, darling Mrs. Dagon?” said the responsive glance of Mrs. Orry, with the most gracious effulgence of aspect, as she glared across the room—­inwardly thinking, “What a silly old hag to lug that cotton lace cape all over town!”