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 constituted the bridge—practically the only effectual one since Edith Dale's Washington Square salon had been abandoned—between the professional world and what the New York Journal called "exclusive social circles." These two classes never mingle very successfully, although individuals may wander from one to the other without causing consternation. The result was that, after a short time, Mrs. Pollanger was looked upon by the authors as a woman of society, while the smart world regarded her as a club woman. Everybody laughed at her a good deal behind her back, but everybody went to her parties to eat the peerless chaud-froid, created by her French cook, and to consume the apparently inexhaustible supply of Pol Roger. Besides, these parties were amusing, although frequently unintentionally so. For one thing, the guests could count on the presence of Mr. Humphry Pollanger, who was vaguely known to sit behind a desk somewhere near Wall Street, cutting off coupons and signing papers for an hour or two each day. He attended these parties, but never seemed to be quite as much at home as his wife's friends. It frequently happened, indeed, that he was urged by some one who had not been introduced to him to take another glass of wine. He had even been mistaken, on occasion, for Mrs. Pollanger's butler.

When the newspapers announced that Gareth Johns would return to America for the first time in