CHAPTER XXXVII.
"From a conversational point of view," Lady Tresham remarked, "our guest to-night seems scarcely likely to distinguish himself." Ernestine looked over her fan across the drawing-room.
"I have never seen such an alteration in a man," she said, "in so short a time.

This morning he amazed me.

He knew the right people and did the right things--carried himself too like a man who is sure of himself.
To-night he is simply a booby." "Perhaps it is his evening clothes," Lady Tresham remarked, "they take some getting used to, I believe." "This morning," Ernestine said, "he had passed that stage altogether.
This is, I suppose, a relapse! Such a nuisance for you!" Lady Tresham rose and smiled sweetly at the man who was taking her in.
"Well, he is to be your charge, so I hope you may find him more amusing than he looks," she answered.
It was an early dinner, to be followed by a visit to a popular theatre.
A few hours ago Trent was looking forward to his evening with the keenest pleasure--now he was dazed--he could not readjust his point of view to the new conditions.

He knew very well that it was his wealth, and his wealth only, which had brought him as an equal amongst these people, all, so far as education and social breeding was concerned, of so entirely a different sphere.

He looked around the table.