As what they would ’twas granted.”—Samuel Rogers, Jacqueline.
Mauney soon realized that, unsatisfactory as was the progress of his affair with Lorna Freeman, he was gaining some advantages from his connection with the family. Life was now a very different thing from that of Lantern Marsh farm. He had at last arrived into the midst of education. He had found people who knew things and were willing to teach him out of their knowledge. Moreover, he could discern that he was being gradually adopted by the Freemans. Through their influence he received an invitation to a dinner at the home of François de Freville. It was written in French. It was to be, for him, a most unusual pleasure and a very exciting one. He had a tailor measure him for a dinner-jacket suit. Lorna fell in love with it, when she saw it, on the evening of the function at de Freville’s. They met at Freeman’s and walked up Crandall Street behind the professor and his wife.
François de Freville, the popular professor of French, always entertained charmingly. He could not do it in any other way. This was a “Faculty dinner,” all the guests being members of the university staff, with a few exceptions, as in Mauney’s case. As a matter of fact it was a rare privilege to be invited and to meet personally the brilliant men who, on such an occasion, put off the garments of their wonted academic restraint, to indulge in free, good-fellowship. François himself lent a distinctly exotic atmosphere. With delightful informality he stood butler inside his own street door, and roared greetings to the guests as they arrived. He was a giant who must bow his head on entering doorways to avoid striking his skull—a man of unusual stature, big-bodied, big-handed, big-headed. Perhaps the charm of being received tempestuously by François lay in the ludicrous idea that this herculean host need not necessarily receive anyone, for if a party of armed militia presented themselves demanding reception they would certainly never get in. François, standing with his big, red face, his enormous black eye-brows, his enormous smile, that burst forth from lairs of brows and black moustaches, would hurl back invasion with smiling ease. In every detail of appearance he suggested the strong-sinewed “kicker-out” of the continental restaurant—just as brusque, just as impulsive, just as toweringly imposing. It was his perversion of function that titillated the fancy, for he was welcoming his guests. One by one he received them, with a fitting word for each, a word of liberty, in fact, which only François would be permitted, of all men, to speak.
“Ah! Madame Freeman!” he took her hand, as she entered, between his own enormous hands to pet it. “Vous êtes très charmante ce soir!”
Mrs. Freeman was not charming to-night. She was never charming, being always too instinct with the soft, great mystery of her personal tragedy. That, however, was quite immaterial. Even if, after thirty years of married life, only dim relics of charm had survived, there was still a truant delight in being told this falsehood. Mauney saw her warm to the salutation of François, and manage to get past his great bulk in excellent spirits.
“Ah, M’sieur le Professeur!” bellowed the giant as he greeted Freeman. What a contrast the two men formed! Freeman smiled apprehensively at the pile of vibrant life before him, as if dreading the forthcoming bon mot.
“Le grand homme, mes amis,” François vociferously announced to a cluster of guests in the drawing-room. “Le grand homme est arrivé!”
The laughter which greeted this announcement was restrained because, apparently, the guests felt that Freeman actually was a great man.
“Bon soir, Mam’selle,” to Lorna.
“Bon soir, M’sieur Bard. Vous êtes bienvenue.”