The first grand entertainment at which Honor had appeared was a large, solemn dinner-party, given by the chief medical officer in Shirani. There were to be thirty guests. This much Mrs. Brande’s cook had gleaned from Mrs. Loyd’s khansamah when he came to borrow jelly-tins and ice-spoons. Mrs. Brande delighted in these formal dinners, where she could enjoy herself most thoroughly as chief guest and experienced critic; and she looked forward to this feast with what seemed to her niece an almost infantile degree of glee and happy anticipation.
Mr. Brande was absent, but even had he been at home he was never enthusiastic respecting these functions. His wife had complained to Mrs. Sladen, “that he got into his evening clothes and bad humour at one and the same time,” save when he dined at home.
“You will wear your white silk, Honor,” observed her aunt, “and I my new pink brocade, with the white lace. I’m really curious to see what sort of a turn-out Mrs. Loyd will have. She has the Blacks’ old cook, and they never gave a decent dinner; but then Mrs. Black was stingy—she grudged a glass of wine for sauce, and never allowed more than half an anna a head for soup-meat. Now Mrs. Loyd is getting up fish from Bombay, so I fancy she means to do the thing properly. Have you ever been to a dinner-party, child?”
“No; not what you would call a party—six at the most; but I have come in after dinner.”
“Fie! fie! that is poor fun,” cried Mrs. Brande, with great scorn. “I should just like to see any one asking my niece to come after dinner! I wonder who will take you in? I know most of the people who are going, for I always read their names in the peon’s book when I get invitations. There will be Captain Waring, and young Jervis, and Sir Gloster Sandilands. I hope Captain Waring will take you in.”
“Oh, I hope not, aunt; he and I do not suit one another at all.”
“Why not?” rather sharply.
“I’ve not sufficient ‘go’ in me. I can’t talk about the people he knows. I’m not smart, or up to date. I can’t say amusing things like Miss Paske; I am merely a stupid little country mouse!”
“And she is a little cat!” with a quick nod. “Well, I must say I’d fifty times rather have Jervis myself. He has such nice manners—different to other young men, who come to my house, and eat and drink of the best, and scarcely look at me afterwards. There was that Thorpe; he never even got off his chair when I spoke to him at the club. I know I’m not a lady born—my father was a wheelwright—but he and his had been in the same place three hundred years. Still, I have my feelings, and that Thorpe, though he may be a lord’s son, is no gentleman. He thought I was deaf, and I heard him say to a man, when I was on his arm—
“‘I’m going to supper the old girl.’