Nevins, in his part of the house, sat shaking his head. "If he hadn't given me warning," he told himself, "I'd have sent for a doctor."
CHAPTER VI.
The smart world received the change in Orson Vane with no immediate wonder. Wonder is, at the outset, a vulgarity; to let nothing astonish you is part of a smart education. A good many of the smartest hostesses in town were glad that Vane had emerged from his erstwhile air of aristocratic aloofness; he took, with them, the place that Reggie Hart's continuing illness left vacant.
In the regions where Vane had been actually intimate whispers began to go about, it is true, and it was with no little difficulty that an occasional story about him was kept out of the gossipy pages of the papers. Vane was constantly busy seeking notoriety. His attentions to several of the younger matrons were conspicuous. Yet he was so much of a stimulating force, in a society where passivity was the rule, that he was welcome everywhere.
He had become the court fool of the smart set.
To him, the position held nothing degrading. It was, he argued, a reflection on smart society, rather on himself, that, to be prominent in it, one must needs wear cap and bells. Moreover his position allowed him, now and then, the utterance of grim truths that would not have been listened to from anyone not wearing the jester's license.
At the now famous dinner given by Mrs. Sclatersby, Orson Vane seized a lull in the conversation, by remarking, in his ladylike lisp:
"My dear Mrs. Sclatersby, I have such a charming idea. I am thinking of syndicating myself."
Mrs. Sclatersby put up her lorgnettes and smiled encouragement at Orson. "It sounds Wall Streety," she said, "you're not going to desert us, are you?"