"Genius," said I, "should make allowances to society. The best nine tailors living cannot fit a genius. Is there any pall on a properly conducted social function like the entrance of a man who wears congress gaiters and mother-of-pearl studs?"
"Ah, Mr. Mudison, you should look at the brain," she protested, shaking her fan at me.
"But the brains should be well served," said I. "Why should we always have to have them garnished with hair, with lay-down collars, with awry coats?"
"It is true," she answered, after a moment of thought. "I should not care to have them around all the time, but occasionally they give variety."
As Julius Hogginson Fairfield was in that part of his speech where he leaves his work to posterity to judge, I could not help continuing for a time this line of speculation, as it gave me an opportunity to explain to Mrs. Underbunk the hollowness of certain kinds of fame which she was evidently inclined to acclaim.
"It must be splendid," she said, "to really do something yourself; to achieve something with your own intellect and hands; to stand with your head just a bit above the common herd."
"Yes—if you are common," said I. "Fame is attractive to the masses. If you cannot be smart, be famous."
"And do you not envy Mr. Fairfield?" said she, looking at me in a puzzled way, "a man whose books are the best sellers of the year, who at this moment is taking his place among the leading playwrights of the time."
"No," I answered, following up my advantage. "To-day he is a celebrity; to-morrow they will give a theatrical benefit for him; the day after, his obituary notice will be cut by the newspapers to make room for a bucket-shop advertisement. But the names of the great cotillon-leaders are on every tongue as long as they can stay on their feet."
I think Mrs. Underbunk is being converted to my ideas. Of course she has been living abroad for a long time and does not altogether understand our New York view of life, but I noticed that when Julius Hogginson Fairfield stepped into the box to speak to us, she did not give him that absorbed look which had so worried me at the Duffs'. There was balm for him, though, in Constance Twitter's admiration. She simply raved over him. She had "The Smash," and considered it one of the greatest books she had ever read.