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Forty-eight hours later the unbelievable had happened; every one had refused the Mingotts' invitation except the Beauforts and old Mr Jackson and his sister The intended slight was eie Chiverses, ere of the Mingott clan, were a of the notes, in all of which the writers "regretted that they were unable to accept," without the ement" that ordinary courtesy prescribed
New York society was, in those days, far too small, and too scant in its resources, for every one in it (including livery-stable-keepers, butlers and cooks) not to know exactly on which evenings people were free; and it was thus possible for the recipients of Mrs Lovell Mingott's invitations to make cruelly clear their determination not to meet the Countess Olenska
The bloas unexpected; but the Mingotts, as their as, ott confided the case to Mrs Welland, who confided it to Newland Archer; who, aflae, appealed passionately and authoritatively to his mother; who, after a painful period of inward resistance and outward te, succumbed to his instances (as she always did), and iy redoubled by her previous hesitations, put on her grey velvet bonnet and said: "I'll go and see Louisa van der Luyden"
The New York of Newland Archer's day was a small and slippery pyramid, in which, as yet, hardly a fissure had been ained At its base was a firm foundation of what Mrs Archer called "plain people"; an honourable but obscure majority of respectable families who (as in the case of the Spicers or the Leffertses or the Jacksons) had been raised above their level byclans People, Mrs Archer always said, were not as particular as they used to be; and with old Catherine Spicer ruling one end of Fifth Avenue, and Julius Beaufort the other, you couldn't expect the old traditions to lastupward from this wealthy but inconspicuous substratuotts, Newlands, Chiverses and Mansons so actively represented Most people iined them to be the very apex of the pyraeneration) were aware that, in the eyes of the professional genealogist, only a still smaller number of families could lay claim to that eminence
"Don't tell me," Mrs Archer would say to her children, "all this modern newspaper rubbish about a New York aristocracy If there is one, neither the Mingotts nor the Mansons belong to it; no, nor the Newlands or the Chiverses either Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were just respectable English or Dutch merchants, who came to the colonies to make their fortune, and stayed here because they did so well One of your great-grandfathers signed the Declaration, and another was a general on Washington's staff, and received General Burgoyne's sword after the battle of Saratoga These are things to be proud of, but they have nothing to do with rank or class New York has always been a commercial community, and there are not more than three fain in the real sense of the word"