He went to see Josephine after dinner that night His own house, while richly and showily furnished, as became his means and station, seemed—­and indeed was—­merely an example of simple, old-fashioned “solid comfort” in comparison with the Burroughs palace.  He had never liked, but, being a true New Yorker, had greatly admired the splendor of that palace, its costly art junk, its rotten old tapestries, its unlovely genuine antiques, its room after room of tasteless magnificence, suggesting a museum, or rather the combination home and salesroom of an art dealer.  This evening he found himself curious, critical, disposed to license a long-suppressed sense of humor.  While he was waiting for Josephine to come down to the small salon into which he had been shown, her older sister drifted in, on the way to a late dinner and ball.  She eyed him admiringly from head to foot.

“You’ve such an air, Fred,” said she.  “You should hear the butler on the subject of you.  He says that of all the men who come to the house you are most the man of the world.  He says he could tell it by the way you walk in and take off your hat and coat and throw them at him.”

Norman laughed and said, “I didn’t know.  I must stop that.”

“Don’t!” cried Mrs. Bellowes.  “You’ll break his heart.  He adores it.  You know, servants dearly love to be treated as servants.  Anyone who thinks the world loves equality knows very little about human nature.  Most people love to look up, just as most women love to be ruled.  No, you must continue to be the master, the man of the world, Fred.”

She was busy with her gorgeous and trailing wraps and with her cigarette or she would have seen his confusion.  He was recalling his scene with the typewriter girl.  Not much of the man of the world, then and there, certainly.  What a grotesque performance for a man of his position, for a serious man of any kind!  And how came he to permit such a person to mimic Josephine Burroughs, a lady, the woman to whom he was engaged?  In these proud and pretentious surroundings he felt contemptibly guilty—­and dazed wonder at his own inexplicable folly and weakness.

Mrs. Bellowes departed before Josephine came down.  So there was no relief for his embarrassment.  He saw that she too felt constrained.  Instead of meeting him half way in embrace and kiss, as she usually did, she threw him a kiss and pretended to be busy lighting a cigarette and arranging the shades of the table lamp.  “Well, I saw your ’poor little creature,’” she began.  She was splendidly direct in all her dealings, after the manner of people who have never had to make their own way—­to cajole or conciliate or dread the consequences of frankness.

“I told you you’d not find her interesting.”

“Oh, she was a nice little girl,” replied Josephine with elaborate graciousness—­and Norman, the “take off” fresh in his mind, was acutely critical of her manner, of her mannerisms.  “Of course,” she went on, “one does not expect much of people of that class.  But I thought her unusually well-mannered—­and quite clean.”