When he went into the library Buckham was there stooping over the fire, his austere old face serious and intent.
“Well, another year almost gone, Buckham!” he said.
“It would be interesting to know what the New-year holds.”
“I hope it will bring you peace and happiness, sir.”
And after Buckham had gone he thought that rather a curious New-year's wish. Peace and happiness! Well, God knows he wanted both. A vague comprehension of the understanding the upper servants of a household acquire as to the inner life of the family stirred in him; how much they knew and concealed under their impassive service.
When Natalie came down the staircase a few minutes later she was swathed in her chinchilla evening wrap, and she watched his face, after her custom when she expected to annoy him, with the furtive look that he had grown to associate with some unpleasantness.
“I hate dressing for a ball at this hour,” she said, rather breathlessly. “I don't feel half-dressed by midnight.”
Madeleine, in street costume, was behind her with a great box.
“She has something for my hair,” she explained. Her tone was nervous, but he was entirely unsuspicious.
“You don't mind if I don't go on to Page's, do you? I'm rather tired, and I ought to stay at the club as late as I can.”
“Of course not. I shall probably pick up some people, anyhow. Everybody is going on.”
In the car she chattered feverishly and he listened, lapsing into one of the silences which her talkative spells always enforced.
“What flowers are you having?” she asked, finally.
“White lilacs and pussy-willow. Did your orchids come?”
“Thanks, yes. But I'm not wearing them. My gown is flame color. They simply shrieked.”
“A sort of orange,” she explained. And, in a slightly defiant tone: “Rodney's is a costume dance, you know.”
He was rather startled. The annual dinner of the board of governors of the City Club and their wives was a most dignified function always. He was the youngest by far of the men; the women were all frankly dowagers. They represented the conservative element of the city's social life, that element which frowned on smartness and did not even recognize the bizarre. It was old-fashioned, secure in its position, influential, and slightly tedious.