The older people took a little longer to settle down. Mr. Lanley stood on the hearth-rug, with a cigar in his mouth and his head thrown very far back. Adelaide sank into a chair, looking, as she often did, as if she had just been brilliantly well posed for a photograph. Farron was silent. Mrs. Wayne sat, as she had a bad habit of doing, on one foot. The two groups were sufficiently separated for distinct conversations.
“Is this a conference?” asked Farron.
Mrs. Wayne made it so by her reply.
“The whole question is, Are they really in love? At least, that’s my view.”
“In love!” Adelaide twisted her shoulders. “What can they know of it for another ten years? You must have some character, some knowledge to fall in love. And these babes—”
“No,” said Mr. Lanley, stoutly; “you’re all wrong, Adelaide. It’s first love that matters—Romeo and Juliet, you know. Afterward we all get hardened and world-worn and cynical and material.” He stopped short in his eloquence at the thought that Mrs. Wayne was quite obviously not hardened or world-worn or cynical or material. “By Jove!” he thought to himself, “that’s it. The woman’s spirit is as fresh as a girl’s.” He had by this time utterly forgotten what he had meant to say.
Adelaide turned to her husband.
“Do you think they are in love, Vin?”
Vincent looked at her for a second, and then he nodded two or three times.
Though no one at once recognized the fact, the engagement was settled at that moment.