CHAPTER V.
What the _Bandar-log_ think now the jungle will think later.
-- Maxim of the _Bandar-log_, RUDYARD KIPLING.
It was Sybell Loftus's first season in London since her second marriage with Mr.Doll Loftus.

After a very brief sojourn in that city of frivolity she had the acumen to discover that London society was hopelessly worldly and mercenary; that people only met to eat and to abuse each other; that the law of cutlet for cutlet was universal; that young men, especially those in the Guards, were garrisoned by a full complement of devils; that London girls lived only for dress and the excitement of husband-hunting.

In short, to use her own expression, she "turned London society inside out." London bore the process with equanimity, and presently Sybell determined to raise the art of dinner-giving from the low estate to which she avowed it had fallen to a higher level.

She was young, she was pretty, she was well-born, she was rich.

All the social doors were open to her.
But one discovery is often only the prelude to another.