He found food for a good deal of thought in the memory of this banquet.  Among the things which he had gathered from the songs was a hint that Oliver, also, had some secrets, which he had not seen fit to tell his brother.  The keeping of young girls was apparently one of the established customs of the “little brothers of the rich”—­and, for that matter, of many of the big brothers, also.  A little later Montague had a curious glimpse into the life of this “half-world.”  He had occasion one evening to call up a certain financier whom he had come to know quite well-a man of family and a member of the church.  There were some important papers to be signed and sent off by a steamer; and the great man’s secretary said that he would try to find him.  A minute or two later he called up Montague and asked him if he would be good enough to go to an address uptown.  It was a house not far from Riverside Drive; and Montague went there and found his acquaintance, with several other prominent men of affairs whom he knew, conversing in a drawing-room with one of the most charming ladies he had ever met.  She was exquisite to look at, and one of the few people in New York whom he had found worth listening to.  He spent such an enjoyable evening, that when he was leaving, he remarked to the lady that he would like his cousin Alice to meet her; and then he noticed that she flushed slightly, and was embarrassed.  Later on he learned to his dismay that the charming and beautiful lady did not go into Society.

Nor was this at all rare; on the contrary, if one took the trouble to make inquiries, he would find that such establishments were everywhere taken for granted.  Montague talked about it with Major Venable; and out of his gossip storehouse the old gentleman drew forth a string of anecdotes that made one’s hair stand on end.  There was one all-powerful magnate, who had a passion for the wife of a great physician; and he had given a million dollars or so to build a hospital, and had provided that it should be the finest in the world, and that this physician should go abroad for three years to study the institutions of Europe!  No conventions counted with this old man—­if he saw a woman whom he wanted, he would ask for her; and women in Society felt that it was an honour to be his mistress.  Not long after this a man who voiced the anguish of a mighty nation was turned out of several hotels in New York because he was not married according to the laws of South Dakota; but this other man would take a woman to any hotel in the city, and no one would dare oppose him!

And there was another, a great traction king, who kept mistresses in Chicago and Paris and London, as well as in New York; he had one just around the corner from his palatial home, and had an underground passage leading to it.  And the Major told with glee how he had shown this to a friend, and the latter had remarked, “I’m too stout to get through there.”—­“I know it,” replied the other, “else I shouldn’t have told you!”