A LITTLE DINNER
"Wreathe the bowl with flowers of soul."
The suppressed excitement of the afternoon lent an added flush and
sparkle to Winifred's face as she entered the study where her father
and Miss Standish were playing chess together after the family dinner.
Self-absorbed as she was at the moment, she found leisure to be struck
with the picture of the two sitting there; her father's head, with its
austere profile outlined against the green curtain, which cast
softened reflections over his white hair, and Miss Standish, crisp and
dainty as a sprig of dried lavender, her gray curls quivering with the
excitement, and her white hands hovering anxiously over rooks and
pawns.
Miss Standish looked up as Winifred came in, radiant in her new
evening gown, for she was to dine with the Hartington Grahams, who had
recently returned from England and opened their town house for the
season.
"I thought it was to be a _little_ dinner," said Miss Standish,
looking with some disapproval at the bare shoulders rising above the
billowy ruffles of rose-colored chiffon.
"It is--'just a small affair,' Mrs. Graham wrote me. Besides, it is
too early in the season for anything formal. In fact, she would hardly
ask her most fashionable friends at this time of year. But she must
get round somehow," Winifred finished with a little laugh.
"In Boston," said Miss Standish, "you would be overdoing it to wear
that kind of a gown to such an affair, but here people seem to have no
sense of gradation. They take literally Longfellow's advice to the
young poet seeking success: 'Do your best every time.'"
"I don't see," said Winifred, "why the advice is not just as good for
dress as for poetry,--except that gowns wear out and poems don't. Is
the carriage there, McGregor, and Maria ready? Well, good-night, Papa;
look out for your queen, and don't let Miss Standish checkmate you
with any of her Boston tricks!"
"I think," Jimmy called out after her from the corner of the big sofa,
where he lay curled up like a dormouse, "if you would do your best on
_my_ dress, instead of making me wear this old suit, it would strike a
better average in the family."
As McGregor closed the carriage door, Winifred was conscious of a
certain satisfaction that she was not to spend the evening at home
with the family. Her restlessness craved a vent, and she wanted to
postpone =all= opportunity for reflection.
There was something about the Grahams which always appealed
to the girl. Their environment suited her æsthetically. For
themselves,--why, one could not have everything--and then they were
never alone.
The carriage stopped before Mrs. Graham's house, and the door opened
almost before she had mounted the steps.
As she passed along the hall, a wave of fragrance from lavishly
disposed flowers floated out to her through the drawn portières, and
she caught a glimpse of the softened light of many lamps-shaded to the
eye but festive to the fancy. "Decidedly," thought Winifred, "it is
agreeable to be rich, and next to being rich one's self, the best
thing is to associate with rich people. Money is such a smoother of
rough ways! and then the vast opportunities of being nice to other
people that come of a purse at leisure from itself to soothe and
sympathize." She smiled to herself at her bold adaptation of the
poet's sentiments, and mounted the stairs with a quickened step,
reflecting suddenly that she had not marked the time accurately and
might be late. Her glance in at the door of the dressing-room
reassured her. At least she was not the last, for in front of the
mirror stood a portly, bediamonded dame, gazing intently into the
glass and putting the last touches to her toilet with stolid
equanimity.
"Want to come here?" she asked, pausing in her elaboration of her
water-waves, and nodding affably to Winifred.
"No, =I= thank you," Winifred answered, seating herself in the low
easy-chair, while the maid pulled off her velvet overshoes.
"Chilly to-night, isn't it?" the lady continued pleasantly, desirous
of putting the new-comer at her ease.
Winifred acquiesced in the views of the weather expressed, and a hint
of the chilliness seemed to have crept into the interior. Her
agreeable anticipations of the evening were vaguely dampened, and she
could not quite forgive the innocent cause. "Why will women with red
necks wear light blue and diamonds!" she wondered, "and what can
reconcile her to looking in the glass?"
With a little shake of the head to make sure that her hairpins were
firmly anchored, and a futile effort to smooth the rebellious curls at
her neck, Winifred glided past the lady in front of the mirror, who
seemed no nearer the completion of her toilet than when she had
entered. At the door of the rear room stood a short, bald-headed man
with a patient expression on his face, as of one who had spent a large
share of his life waiting for his wife. He glanced with some surprise
at the swift reappearance of the girl whom he had watched as she came
up the stairs so short a time before.
"That girl beats the ticker," he said to himself as she passed him;
"she'll make some man happy if she keeps it up."
The clock was striking eight as Winifred entered the drawing-room. "It
is quite a feat to be on time in this city of long distances," said
her hostess.
"How delightful to be appreciated!" responded Winifred, with a
brilliant smile. "I was just pluming myself on being so prompt, but I
see the others are still more so." Here she swept a rapid glance over
a seated group at the other end of the room.
"I suppose it is hardly more prompt to be too early than too late, so
you are still entitled to the palm."
The voice which came from close beside her drew the blood to her
cheek; but as the words went on, her nervous tremor subdued itself,
for the tone said to her as clearly as words, "Everything is to be
ignored. We are on the social stage, and must play our parts. You may
trust me."
Winifred felt a wave of relief sweep over her. She thanked the speaker
with her eyes. To her hostess she said lightly, "Mr. Flint is as much
of a purist as ever--no; don't leave us together. He and I have been
quarrelling over the tea-cups this afternoon. I will let you take up
the defence, while I go over to speak to your sister, Miss Wabash, in
the corner--and isn't that Captain Blathwayt with her?"
"Yes, he crossed with us on the 'Lucania'; remembered meeting you in
Cheyenne or some other outlandish Western town--thinks you the most
charming American he ever met."
"How clever of you!" said Winifred over her shoulder, as she moved
away. "Reflected flattery is the most alluring kind."
As Mrs. Graham turned to greet two newcomers, Flint was left alone,
with no hindrance to the occupation of watching Winifred Anstice. She
stood with her back toward him and her head slightly turned, so that
his eye took in the delicate line of cheek and chin, broken by the
shadows of a dimple, the curve of the neck, and the soft little curls
that nestled at the base of the hair. A woman is always much handsomer
or much plainer than usual in evening dress.
As Flint looked at Winifred, he felt an absurd jealousy of the
monocled Englishman who presumed to show his admiration so plainly.
His reflections were ended for the time being by the voice of his
hostess saying, "Will you take my sister in to dinner?" As he moved
across the room, Winifred and Captain Blathwayt passed out together,
just ahead of Miss Wabash and himself. He scarcely knew whether to
feel regret or relief to find that the width of the table was to be
between him and Winifred. It certainly had the advantage of shutting
off all necessity for the conversation _farcie_ of the conventional
dinner, which he felt would be an impossibility between him and her
to-night.
With Miss Wabash the _vol-au-vent_ of talk seemed the most natural
thing; and Flint dashed at once into a jesting, somewhat daring tone,
which she took quite in good part, and when her attention was claimed
by the bald-headed broker on the other side, his neighbor on the left,
a double-chinned dowager, with a pearl necklace half hidden in the
creases of her neck and a diamond aigrette in her hair, proved no less
garrulous if somewhat less sprightly.
She had much to tell of the loss of her diamonds by a burglary last
week, and of their recovery through the agency of detectives whose
charges were exorbitant. She acquainted Flint with every detail of
the conduct of the family and the servants, the police and the
detectives. As she went on, people began to listen, and the talk
around the table, which had lagged a little, started up more briskly
than before.
"I have noticed," said Winifred to Captain Blathwayt, "that there are
two subjects which will make even dull people lively,--burglaries and
mind-cure."
"Aw, I don't know much about burglaries,--never had one in the family;
but I think a lot about mind-cure and all that sort of thing."
"Confirmation of my theory!" said Winifred, with an impertinence which
felt safe in banking on the lack of perception in the person whose
dignity was assailed.
"Do you believe in the mind-cure?" asked Miss Wabash, who had caught
the phrase across the table.
"It depends on the mind," Flint answered.
"Oh, no, it doesn't; not at all. That's the first principle of the
science. You only need to resign yourself and let the influence flow
over you."
"Does it make any difference whose influence it is?"
"Oh, I suppose so. It must be trained influence, and it seems to work
better when it is paid for."
"Most things do," observed Flint.
"My cousin says--"
Flint never knew exactly what Miss Wabash's cousin did say, for at
that point in the conversation his attention was irresistibly
attracted by the talk of his opposite neighbors.
"Now there's a lot in it, I'm sure," the man of the monocle was
saying, bending toward Winifred with what Flint considered
objectionable propinquity,--"telepathy, don't you know, and--and all
that sort of thing. I had no idea I was to meet you to-night, but as I
was standing on the doorstep I remembered how you looked at that
dinner out in Cheyenne, and a remark you made to me--do you
recollect?"
"The dinner, perfectly; the remark, not at all."
"Well, I sha'n't repeat it, for it was deucedly severe on the English.
Really, you know, we're not half bad; but you don't care for your
cousins over the water, I am afraid. Do you?"
"I think the cousins over the water are much like those on this
side,--the relationship is simply an opportunity for intimate
acquaintance. Some Englishmen are the most charming of their sex;
others are--well, quite the reverse."
"To which do _I_ belong?" asked the Captain, turning toward her more
openly and leaving his terrapin untasted, which meant much with
Blathwayt.
"Can you doubt?" Winifred responded with a radiant but wholly
non-committal smile. Self-possessed as she was outwardly, however, she
felt Flint's eyes upon her, and experienced a sense of annoyance at
the attitude of both men.
Her host on the other side came to her relief at the moment.
"Blathwayt," he said, leaning over, "you must try this wine. It is
some my wine-merchant in Paris sent over ten years ago,--a special
vintage,--and don't let the terrapin go by, for there's nothing else
worth while before the canvas-backs. I'll let you into the secret too,
Miss Anstice," he added with an expression closely approaching a wink.
"Thanks," said Winifred, rather wearily, "I am not an epicure."
"Oh, but you can be trained to be!" Graham answered encouragingly. "It
is mainly a question of practice, though I must say that I was born
with the taste,--inherited from my father, I believe; and I've heard
him tell how once when I was five years old I scolded the butler for
sending up the Burgundy iced."
"How precocious!" murmured Winifred.
"Well, of course, that was unusual; but if children were taken young
and had half the attention paid to their palates that folks give to
their eyes and ears, with their fool drawing-teachers and
music-masters in the attempt to enable them to bore somebody with
their twopenny accomplishments, we should soon have a race of
gourmets; and gourmets make cooks. No chef can do his best without
appreciation. For the matter of that, a cook must be born,--he must
have the feeling for his business. Now there was a fellow in
England--My dear," he called out to his wife at the other end of the
table, "was it Windermere or Grassmere where we had those excellent
breaded trout?"
"I forget," Mrs. Graham answered; "but I know it was the one where
Wordsworth lived. Which was that, Mr. Flint?"
"Now don't interrupt us," Miss Wabash said in her loud, unshaded
tones; "Mr. Flint has just consented to let me tell his fortune by his
hand."
Flint looked rather foolish. He was in that awkward position where it
seemed equally fatuous to assent or decline; but deciding on the
former course, he held out his hand, saying, "Spare my character as
far as you conscientiously can, Miss Wabash, and remember in
extenuation of my shortcomings that I did not have the advantage of
being brought up in Chicago."
All tête-à-tête conversation now ceased, and the attention of the
company was riveted upon Flint and his neighbor. Winifred felt herself
growing intensely nervous. She had no fear of Miss Wabash's
extraordinary power of divination, but she had still less confidence
in the delicacy of her perceptions, and she dreaded some remark which
would embarrass her through Flint's embarrassment.
In her present high-strung condition, her apprehension made her a
little faint for a moment. The centrepiece of orchids and roses seemed
a vague mass of rather oppressive color and perfume. The women's faces
and necks looked like reddish blobs with flashes of light where the
jewels came. The broad white expanse of the men's shirt fronts alone
retained a certain steadiness. Hastily she grasped her glass of
champagne and drained it dry. It was the first wine she had tasted
that night, and it braced her nerves at once. Fortunately no one
observed her paleness, for everybody's attention was fixed upon Miss
Wabash as she bent over Flint's open palm.
"A surprising hand!" that young lady was saying; "really in some ways
quite the most interesting I ever came across. I must report it to
Chiro. The fingers very pointed--that ought to indicate idealism, but
the knots on the joints imply practical critical sense. It looks as
though the mind were always grasping at some ideal and were held back
by the critical faculty."
"Don't blink your points, Mamie!" called out the host, facetiously. At
this allusion to sporting reminiscences, all the men laughed, but the
women rather resented the interruption, as a frivolous treatment of a
serious subject.
"You have learned your profession thoroughly," said Flint, coloring a
little in spite of himself. "I shall begin to be afraid of you in
earnest, if you are so discerning."
"Oh, I have only begun!" answered Miss Wabash, kindled by success to
greater vivacity. "That thumb shows marked firmness (see, I can
scarcely bend it back at all); perhaps, if I knew you better, I should
say obstinacy."
Every one laughed.
"The fingers," she went on, "show more sensitiveness; and the
mounds--oh, those mean a great deal! Mars is firm and prominent--what
you undertake you will carry through, if it kills you and everybody
else."
"What a fellow to buy on margin!" said the broker.
"He doesn't seem to have succeeded in getting married for all his
perseverance," laughed Mr. Graham.
Winifred, in spite of her emotion, found time to reflect on the
vulgarity of the phrase, and shivered a little. Flint colored, though
he held his hand quite steady.
"Perhaps he'll buy her sixty," chuckled the broker, pleased with his
technical wit.
"He'd better hurry up," said Miss Wabash, "for his life-line is short.
He's had experiences though. May I tell them, Mr. Flint?"
"I give you permission."
"Well, then, you were in love once a long time ago, but there were
reasons why you couldn't marry, and so you gave up the affair and have
never really cared for any one since; but two or three women have been
desperately in love with you."
"Mademoiselle, respect the seal of the confessional!" said Flint,
smiling, but drawing away his hand with a quick instinctive motion
which did not escape Winifred.
"Ho! ho!" called out Graham, "perhaps there is more in palmistry than
I thought. Go on, Mamie, and give us the history of the Salvation Army
episode and the Hallelujah lassie!"
Flint cursed inwardly, cursed everything and almost everybody, himself
most of all. What was he here for? What if Graham _was_ the chief
stockholder in the "Trans-Continental," he was a coarse-grained
sensualist, with whom no gentleman should associate. (This estimate by
no means did Graham justice, but Flint was not in a judicial mood.)
Then this crack-brained girl with her foolish fake of a theory--and he
had been idiot enough to fall into this trap, and now Winifred would
think he had boasted of Nora Costello as a conquest, perhaps bragged
about saving her life. Oh, the whole thing was past endurance!
Meanwhile everything around moved on mechanically. He heard his host
say impatiently, "My dear, if you keep that épigramme of lamb waiting
much longer, we'd better give up dining and take to holding hands all
round."
At this there was a general taking up of forks and a subdued buzz of
conversation. It was rather a relief when the candle-shade took fire
and Flint had an excuse for rising to seize it before the butler could
reach it.
The dinner ended at last, though it seemed as if it never would. As he
held aside the velvet curtains for the ladies to pass, Flint strove to
catch Winifred's eyes, to judge, if he might, what impression Graham's
remark had made; but Blathwayt held her in talk till the threshold was
reached, and the curtain dropped behind her without a glance in
Flint's direction.
She held her head a little higher than usual as she moved beside Mrs.
Graham into the music-room. A wave of contempt was sweeping over her,
as she reviewed the dinner, its gilding, its gluttony, and its
unspeakable dulness, and she felt that she had sold her birthright of
self-respect for a mess of pottage.
Miss Wabash sat down at the piano and sang "Oh, Promise Me," and one
or two other gems from DeKoven's latest opera, and then the ladies
adjourned once more to the library.
The Grahams' library was a large square room, diversified by two
shallow bay-windows such as only a corner house permits. It was ceiled
and finished in heavy Flemish oak, and the walls above the low
bookcases were hung with tapestry. Easy-chairs and softly upholstered
divans filled every nook and corner. It was really, Winifred decided,
an ideal library,--or would have been if there had been any books
behind the silk curtains hung over the shelves.
As they entered the room Miss Wabash drew Winifred to a seat near
herself on the sofa.
"Green mint or Chartreuse?" the hostess asked, as the little
ice-filled glasses were set on the low table by her side.
Winifred declined the cordials, but sat sipping the coffee out of the
tiny Dresden cup, while she listened to the wearisome platitudes of
Mrs. Graham and her guests. From time to time her eye was caught by
the flashing of the jewelled pendulum of the clock on the mantel, in
the drawing-room across the hall, and her mind dwelt ironically on
some lines she had read somewhere:--
"Ah! who with clear account remarks
The ebbing of Time's glass,
When all his sands are diamond sparks
That dazzle as they pass!"
She smiled a derisive little smile, all to herself, as she thought how
small a power lay in jewelled pendulums to make a brilliant evening,
and she felt a certain thrill of pride at the thought that her
associations lay in a world removed from all this smothering
materialism. The lavish sumptuousness which till now had appealed to
her rather strongly, seemed suddenly tainted with vulgarity, and her
thoughts wandered half unconsciously to the bare little room where she
had gone to see Nora Costello. The name brought a slight quickening of
her pulses, and she wanted time to think over things alone.
As the men came in from the dining-room Miss Anstice's carriage was
announced, and she rose to bid her hostess good-night.
"Must you run away so early, my dear?"
"Thank you, yes; I promised Papa to come home early. He likes to see
me before he goes to bed, and to hear an account of my evening."
"You will be at home at five to-morrow, and I may bring Captain
Blathwayt?"
"Any friend of yours, of course," murmured Winifred, in a tone which
could hardly have proved encouraging to the vanity or incipient
sentiment of the guardsman.
"If you will permit me," said Flint to Graham as Winifred came down
the stairs, "I will put Miss Anstice into her carriage, and then come
back for that last cigar."
Never in his life had Flint so raved against his own lack of readiness
as now, when he felt the passing moments slipping by, and could find
no words to set himself right in the eyes of the woman he loved,--the
woman whose little gloved hand rested on his arm. Judge then of his
feeling when, smiling up into his eyes with perfect friendliness,
Winifred said under her breath, "Why do we go there--you and I? They
really aren't our kind at all."
The remark carried with it full assurance that no words uttered by
Hartington Graham had power to shake for an instant her faith in the
man whom she had called her friend; but beyond that her confident use
of the word _our_, as if their interests and associations were the
same, thrilled him with a sort of intoxication.
"Oh, thank you!" was all that he could find to say to express his
complicated state of mind.
"I do not deserve any thanks at all," Winifred answered. "I ought to
be well scolded for speaking slightingly of people whom I have just
been visiting. I do not often do such ill-mannered things, and I
should not have said it to any one but you."
Again Flint thrilled at the unconscious flattery.
"Will you come in to-morrow afternoon?" she asked, as he shut the
carriage door.
"To meet Captain Blathwayt? No, thank you."
"The day after then."
"So be it--till then, farewell!"
Flint re-entered the house with his heart beating like a trip-hammer.