TRICKLAND pushed his chair back a trifle and looked down the long table. The air was warm and perfumed with the Parma violets scattered over the glossy linen. The candles threw lovely shadows on the shoulders of the women, whose eyes grew brighter as the dinner advanced, and whose soft, high voices babbled unceasingly, until his senses, long used to the silence of the plains, fairly ached with the steady din.
Such a strange party! But Bobby Henshawe always asked just the people he wanted, whether they were chorus girls or Vere de Veres, and he knew any number of either class. To-night, except for the four or five women and the men next them, who, he said, represented the effete aristocracy, and seemed to have been imported to give tone to a company a little more bohemian than even he had yet essayed to manage at one time, there were no faces that Strickland had ever seen before. That meant little, of course. He had been two years away and utterly cut off from a life that puzzled and wearied him now in all its flippant, foolish phases.
How had he lived for twenty-five years among these clever, idle, futile, grown-up children, working so ceaselessly to amuse themselves, flying so feverishly from the ennui they dreaded so pitifully! It seemed to him a very sad thing that such handsome, able women, such clever— What were they laughing at?
"I shall certainly tell it. If Bobby wants to leave the table, he may. Hold his hand, somebody, and calm his nervous starts. Do sit still, Bobby, and don't make such faces!"
Bobby smiled hopelessly. "Oh, tell it, then, and for heaven's sake, Parker, cut it short!" he growled. They know it, anyhow."
"But we love it so!" A beautiful gypsy leaned dramatically across her neighbor's plate and pursed up her lips at Bobby. "It makes me so happy just to know that such heavenly things can really happen!"
"Certainly," said Parker, "that's the way we all feel. You see," to the table generally, "Bobby had engaged to get Daisy Koster to come up from the play and take tea with Miss Richards and a few friends, just as she was, in her costume, you know, and sing us a song. Of course, Miss Richards couldn't ask her, but Bobby, unfortunately for his subsequent reputation, could, so he pleasantly agreed to sit through the matinée and bring her back. You all know," with a dramatic gesture, "how truly amiable is the character of our dear Robert, how easily urged to little deeds of kindness he is, how—" Here laughter drowned the narrative, which proceeded, nevertheless, audibly to a few, for they appeared to be understanding when Strickland finally heard again.
"Of course, Bobby was vexed. He hadn't expected such a reply, and he had told Dick Streeter to come around on the strength of Daisy's consenting. You know Dick looks just like Arthur, whose duties as rector rather interfered with his accompanying his brother. So when our dear Robert went to church with the family, and also went to sleep—in that respect unaccompanied by his dear ones, let us hope—Arthur, who preached about the woman of Samaria, who was at a well, you know, lifted his voice and asked, fervently, 'And though she was beckoned so lovingly, did she come?' That woke Bobby up, and he stared at Arthur, who really does resemble his sinful brother shockingly, and when Arthur stared at him—unconsciously, of course—and demanded, vigorously, 'Why did she not come?' our darling Robert gasped and mumbled thickly, 'She said 'twas too swell for her!' What more he might have been led to say we do not—cannot know. He was suppressed"
"Now look here, Parker," began the helpless Bobby, but the renewed laughter reduced him to a bitter silence. At length he growled, "I didn't say all that, I know. I just"
"Oh, yes, dear, but you did, you truly did!" cried Mrs. Jack Archer, gaily. "I sat in the next pew, and, Bobby, I heard you! It was heavenly! And my niece from school was quite hysterical and had to have salts and Italian mints and a fan. Jack went to church three times in succession on the strength of it, but nothing has happened since, so he has given it up. He's quite disappointed, poor fellow."
Strickland looked curiously at the woman who had just spoken. He had gone to dancing-school with her and led the cotillion often with the prettiest bud of her season—once he had wanted to marry her. He fancied those violet eyes smiling into his over the pine table in his office, he fancied that ivory satin gown sweeping the floor of his one-storied house, twelve miles from a white man, and muttered scornfully to himself.