she needed was an adviser. She went over the bead-roll of her acquaintance and found nobody eligible. Those who could have pointed out to her what were the proper steps to take in such a case were just the people to whom she was not willing to expose herself in her unfledged condition. At last she felt obliged to ask Mr. Hilbrough about it.
"Don't you know somebody, my dear, who knows New York better than I do, who could give me advice about our reception?" This was her opening of the matter as she sat crocheting by the glowing grate of anthracite in the large front room on the second floor, while her husband smoked, and read his evening paper.
"I? How should I know?" he said, laying down the paper. "I don't know many New York ladies."
"Not a woman! I mean some man. You can't speak to a woman about such things so well as you can to a man;" and she spread her fancy-work out over her knee and turned her head on one side to get a good view of its general effect.
"I should think you would rather confide in a woman." Hilbrough looked puzzled and curious as he said this.
"You don't understand," she said. "A woman doesn't like to give herself away to another woman. Women always think you ridiculous if you don't understand everything, and they remember and talk about it. But a man likes to give information to a woman. I suppose men like to have a woman look up to them." Mrs. Hilbrough laughed at the explanation, which was not quite satisfactory to herself.
"Well," said Hilbrough, after a minute's amused meditation, "the men I know are all like me. They are business men, and are rather dragged into society, I suppose, by their wives, and by" – he chuckled merrily at this point – "by the debts they owe to social position, you know. I don't believe there's a man in the bank that wouldn't be as likely to ask me about what coat he ought to wear on any occasion as to give me any information on the subject. Yes, there is one man. That's young Millard, or Millard, as he calls it. He's a sort of a dude, and I never could stand dudes. I asked Mr. Masters the other day whether the assistant cashier was worth so large a salary as five thousand dollars, and he said that that man had the entry – the ontray, as he called it – to the best houses in New York. He's cheek by jowl with a dozen of the richest men, he's invited everywhere, and is considered a great authority on all matters of that kind. He brings some business to the bank, and he's one of the best judges in New York of a man's character and responsibility. He knows all about pretty nearly every man whose note is presented for discount, and, if he does not know at once, he can generally find out in an hour. I believe he could tell us the name of the grandmother of almost every prominent depositor if we wished to know, and how every man got his money."
"Is he rich?"
"Well, nobody seems to know for certain. He has a large slice of the bank's stock, and he's known to have good investments outside. He's well enough off to live without his salary if he wanted to. But I am pretty sure he isn't rich. Belongs to some old family, I suppose."
"I should be afraid of him," said Mrs. Hilbrough, ruefully.
"You needn't be. He's a good enough sort of fellow if he only wouldn't part his hair in the middle. I can't abide that in a man. But it's no use being afraid of him. He probably knows all about you and me already. He first came to see me about coming into the bank, and I don't know but it was his move to get me."
"Would he come up to dinner some evening?"
"He'd rather like to oblige me. I'll have to get him when he's disengaged. What shall I tell him?"
"Tell him that Mrs. Hilbrough wishes his advice, and would be glad if he would come to dinner with us some evening."
"Why do I need to say anything about your wanting advice? I don't just like to ask a favor of such a dude. I'll ask him to dinner, and you can ask his advice as though by accident."
"No; that won't do. That kind of man would see through it all. Tell him that I wish his advice. That will show him that I recognize his position as an authority. He'll like that better."
Warren Hilbrough suddenly discovered that his wife was cleverer – or, as he would have said, "smarter" – than he had thought her.
"You are a good hand, Jenny," he said. "You'll win your game." And after he had resumed the reading of his paper he looked over the top of it once or twice in furtive admiration of her as she sat between him and the dark portière, which set her form in relief against the rich background and made her seem a picture to the fond eyes of her husband. He reflected that perhaps after all managing church fairs and running sewing societies was no bad training for a larger social activity.
VI.
PHILLIDA CALLENDER
"Hilbrough has sent for me," said Millard to Philip Gouverneur, who was sitting so as to draw his small form into the easy-chair as he smoked by the open fire in the newspaper room at the Terrapin Club. Millard, who had never liked tobacco, was pretending to smoke a cigarette because smoking seemed to him the right thing to do. He had no taste for any more desperate vice, and tobacco smoke served to take the gloss off a character which seemed too highly finished for artistic effect.
"Hilbrough" – Charley smiled as he recalled it – "always gets uneasy when he's talking to me. He takes his foot off the chair and puts it on the floor. Then he throws himself forward on the table with his elbows outward, and then he straightens up. He's a jolly kind of man, though, and a good banker. But his wife – she is the daughter of a Yankee school-teacher that taught in Brooklyn till he died – is a vigorous little woman. She hasn't come to New York to live quietly. She's been head and front of her set in Brooklyn, and the Lord knows what she won't undertake now that Hilbrough's getting rich very fast. I haven't seen her yet, but I rather like her in advance. She didn't try to trap me into an acquaintance, but sent me word that she wanted advice. There's a woman who knows what she wants, and goes for it with a clear head. But what can I do for her? She'll be wanting to give a tea or a ball before she has acquaintances enough. It's awfully ticklish making such people understand that they must go slow and take what they can get to begin with."
"Why," said Gouverneur, "you can tell her to take the religious or moral reform dodge, and invite all the friends of some cause to meet some distinguished leader of that cause. Bishop Whipple, if she could capture him, would bring all the Friends of the Red Man, just as Miss Willard or Mrs. Livermore would fetch the temperance and woman-suffrage people. You remember the converted Hindu princess they had over here last winter? Between her rank, and her piety, and her coming from the antipodes, and her heathen antecedents, she drew beautifully. Fine woman, too. Even my mother forgave her for not having a drop of Dutch or Revolutionary blood in her veins, and we all liked her very much. Give Mrs. Hilbrough that tip."
Millard shook his head, and smiled. He had the appreciative smile of a man with a genius for listening, which is a better, because a rarer, contribution to conversation than good speech. Philip, crouched in his chair with his face averted from the electric lights, went on:
"Well, then you know there is the literary dodge. Have papers read, not enough to bore people too deeply, but to bore them just enough to give those who attend an impression of intellectuality. Have discussions of literary questions, seasoned with stewed terrapin, and decorated with dress coats and external anatomy gowns. Those who go to such places flatter themselves that they are getting into literary circles and improving their minds, especially if a popular magazinist or the son of some great author can be persuaded to read one of his rejected articles or to make a few remarks now and then. Then there is the musical dodge on the drawing-room scale, or by wholesale, like the Seidl Society, for example. One is able by this means to promote a beautiful art and increase one's social conspicuousness at the same time. Then there is the distinguished-foreigner dodge, give a reception in honor of – "
"Hang
