Arlette appeared in the door of the dining-room and announced that dinner was served. The quartet of young people took their places at table, and Kendall began serving a wonderful pea soup from a big bowl while Arlette stood in the door with hands folded across her stomach, watching anxiously and shooting quick glances at Madeleine.
“It is soup,” she said, suddenly, and then darted out of sight with startling abruptness.
The soup was followed by meat, which Arlette placed on the table with something like a flourish, then stepped back and addressed Andree.
“Veal,” she said. “Oh, mademoiselle, the meats are too dear. It is not my fault.... Perhaps this will be tough. Who knows?” She paused anxiously to look first at Bert and then at Ken, who was carving.
“It’s all right, Arlette,” he assured her, but she was not satisfied, remaining as close to the table as she could press and watching with an expression of the most comical anxiety while Ken cut off a morsel and put it in his mouth. She then, apparently, calculated the difficulty he encountered in mastication, her jaws working a trifle as if to aid in the process, and presently uttered a deep sigh of relief. According to her judgment, Ken had not chewed too laboriously and the meat was satisfactory. Only then did she retreat to the kitchen.
“She is very droll,” said Madeleine, restraining her laughter with difficulty.
“She is very well,” said Andree, nodding her head prettily, “but also she is droll.”
“Monsieur Bert also is droll,” said Madeleine, reaching out to bestow a little pat upon Bert’s hand.
“All Americans are droll,” said Andree, solemnly.
“Tous les Américains sont fous,” said Ken, quoting a saying of Paris, which adored Americans at the moment and delighted in their peculiarities and their absurdities, and laughed at them as one laughs at the antics of children, deciding, as its dictum had it, that all the Americans were mad.