Edith had been allowed by her husband carte blanche in the decoration of their house.
This was fortunate, as mise-en-scène was a great gift of hers; no-one had such a sense as Edith for arranging a room. She had struck the happy mean between the eccentric and the conventional. Anything that seemed unusual did not appear to be a pose, or a strained attempt at being different from others, but seemed to have a reason of its own. For example, she greatly disliked the usual gorgeous endimanché drawing-room and dark conventional dining-room. The room in which she received her guests was soft and subdued in colour and not dazzling with that blaze of light that is so trying to strangers just arrived and not knowing their way about a house (or certain of how they are looking). The room seemed to receive them kindly; make them comfortable, and at their ease, hoping they looked their best. The shaded lights, not dim enough to be depressing, were kind to those past youth and gave confidence to the shy. There was nothing ceremonious, nothing chilly, about the drawing-room; it was essentially at once comfortable and becoming, and the lights shone like shaded sunshine from the dull pink corners of the room.
On the other hand, the dining-room helped conversation by its stimulating gaiety and daintiness.
The feminine curves of the furniture, such as is usually kept for the drawing-room, were all pure Louis-Quinze. It was deliriously pretty in its pink and white and pale green.
In the drawing-room the hosts stood by one of those large, old-fashioned oaken fireplaces so supremely helpful to conversation and tête-à-têtes. In Edith's house there was never any general conversation except at dinner. People simply made friends, flirted, and enjoyed themselves.
As the clock struck eight the Mitchells were announced. Edith could scarcely control a laugh as Mr Mitchell came in, he looked so utterly unlike the dangerous lover Madame Frabelle had conjured up. He was immensely tall, broad, loosely built, large-shouldered, with a red beard, a twinkle in his eye, and the merriest of laughs. He was a delightful man, but there was no romance about him. Besides, Edith remembered him as a black poodle.
* * * * *
Mrs. Mitchell struck a useful note, and seemed a perfect complement to her husband, the ideal wife for him. She was about forty-five, but being slim, animated, and well dressed (though entirely without chic), she seemed a good deal younger.
Mr. Mitchell might have been any age between sixty and sixty-five, and had the high spirits and vitality of a boy.
It was impossible to help liking this delightful couple; they fully deserved their popularity. In the enormous house at Hampstead, arranged like a country mansion, where they lived, Mr. Mitchell made it the object of his life to collect Bohemians as other people collect Venetian glass, from pure love of the material. His wife, with a silly woman's subtlety, having rather lower ideals—that is to say, a touch of the very human vulgarity known as social ambition—made use of his Bohemianism to help her on in her mundane success. This was the principle of the thing. If things were well done—and they always were at her house—would not a duke, if he were musical, go anywhere to hear the greatest tenor in Europe? And would not all the greatest celebrities go anywhere to meet a duke?