Coffee was served in the living-room, a method of Margaret's for redistributing her guests. By the new adjustment, Phyllis Henshaw fell to James Pelham and Gregory could not help smiling at Margaret when he caught her eye. Skill like this amounted to an art. From time to time he glanced at the white-haired president, listening with a mechanical smile to the Gothic ravings and wondered whether any man, except perhaps a Jesuit diplomat, could have achieved his purpose better. At the first opportunity, Gregory edged his own partner to the rescue, and then realized that he, too, was weaving a pattern of the evening to Margaret's design. He had an almost irresistible impulse to call across the room to her:
"Is this the way you want it? Or have I made a mistake?"
There was neither bridge nor music, and yet most of the guests stayed until almost twelve. It was even a little after before Phyllis Henshaw kissed Margaret effusively and assured her that it had all "been simply perfect." When the front door closed behind them, Margaret dropped into a chair and yawned.
"People can say what they like, but there's absolutely no other way to do it. A dinner is the only thing."
"Q. E. D."
"But next winter I'm going to do it a little differently. We won't begin quite so early in the season—now that I know who's who. We won't give more than six either. That's enough to cover all the people that really matter."
"A kind of inverse ratio? In time, at that rate, we'll have to eat alone."
"I suppose that's awfully clever; but, really, I'm too tired to follow."
Gregory realized that he was being petty. For the evening had been just as much of an accomplishment, in its way, as Bobby Phillips' engineering miracles in the Orient, or the Auditorium itself, for that matter.
"It was all right, Margaret, and I'm sure if Burnham wrote sonnets he'd be sitting up at this minute."