in life, and understood quite well the social manners of the mammas and girls in whose company they condescended to dawdle and make, languidly, cynical observations.  They had, in truth, the manner of playing at fashion and elegance as in a stage comedy.  King could not help thinking there was something theatrical about them altogether, and he fancied that when he saw them in their “traps” on the Avenue they were going through the motions for show and not for enjoyment.  Probably King was mistaken in all this, having been abroad so long that he did not understand the evolution of the American gilded youth.

In a pause of the music Mrs. Bartlett Glow and Mr. King were standing with a group near the steps that led down to the inner lawn.  Among them were the Postlethwaite girls, whose beauty and audacity made such a sensation in Washington last winter.  They were bantering Mr. King about his Narragansett excursion, his cousin having maliciously given the party a hint of his encounter with the tide at the Pier. . .  Just at this moment, happening to glance across the lawn, he saw the Bensons coming towards the steps, Mrs. Benson waddling over the grass and beaming towards the group, Mr. Benson carrying her shawl and looking as if he had been hired by the day, and Irene listlessly following.  Mrs. Glow saw them at the same moment, but gave no other sign of her knowledge than by striking into the banter with more animation.  Mr. King intended at once to detach himself and advance to meet the Bensons.  But he could not rudely break away from the unfinished sentence of the younger Postlethwaite girl, and the instant that was concluded, as luck would have it, an elderly lady joined the group, and Mrs. Glow went through the formal ceremony of introducing King to her.  He hardly knew how it happened, only that he made a hasty bow to the Bensons as he was shaking hands with the ceremonious old lady, and they had gone to the door of exit.  He gave a little start as if to follow them, which Mrs. Glow noticed with a laugh and the remark, “You can catch them if you run,” and then he weakly submitted to his fate.  After all, it was only an accident which would hardly need a word of explanation.  But what Irene saw was this:  a distant nod from Mrs. Glow, a cool survey and stare from the Postlethwaite girls, and the failure of Mr. King to recognize his friends any further than by an indifferent bow as he turned to speak to another lady.  In the raw state of her sensitiveness she felt all this as a terrible and perhaps intended humiliation.

King did not return to the hotel till evening, and then he sent up his card to the Bensons.  Word came back that the ladies were packing, and must be excused.  He stood at the office desk and wrote a hasty note to Irene, attempting an explanation of what might seem to her a rudeness, and asked that he might see her a moment.  And then he paced the corridor waiting for a reply.  In his impatience the fifteen minutes that he waited seemed an hour.  Then a bell-boy handed him this note: