It was quite a small party, the two younger sisters of the American chargé d’affaires balancing Tom and Manvers, Arthur and his sister making up the six. The two Miss Vanderbilts both talked as much as possible, sighed for “Parrus,” and referred to the Acropolis as “those lonely old ruins,” but agreed that Athens was “cunning.”
“Well, I’m right down afraid of an electric storm,” remarked Miss Vanderbilt, to whom Tom’s remark about the lightning had been addressed, “and as for Bee, she won’t be comfortable until she’s said her prayers and is safe in the coal-store.”
“The doctor at Parrus told me I’d a nervous temperament,” remarked Bee, “and we all knew that before, but he made Popper pay up for saying so.”
“‘Speech is silver,’” remarked Manvers.
“Well, his speech was gold,” said Miss Vanderbilt.
“Don’t you dread electric storms, Miss Wrexham?”
Maud was sitting at the head of the table fanning herself. She had borne up against sirocco, but the sticky bath stage had finished her, and she felt, as Bee would have expressed it, as if they’d omitted to starch her when she was sent from the wash.
“No, I love them,” said Maud. “I wish it would begin at once. It may make the air less stifling.”
“Well, I’d sooner be stifled than lightning-struck,” said Bee, “it’s so sudden. Popper”—she referred to her father—“Popper says that an average electric storm discharges enough electric fluid to light Chicago for ten days. I think the table is just too elegant, Mr. Wrexham: where do you get your flowers from?”
Things improved a little as dinner went on, and after fish Maud felt better.