“We’re all failures for that matter,” David said. “Let’s have dinner.”
Eleanor’s empty place, set with the liqueur glass she always drank her thimbleful of champagne in, and the throne chair from the drawing-room in which she presided over the feasts given in her honor, was almost too much for them. Margaret 302 cried openly over her soup. Peter shaded his eyes with his hand, and Gertrude and Jimmie groped for each other’s hands under the shelter of the table-cloth.
“This—this won’t do,” David said. He turned to Beulah on his left, sitting immovable, with her eyes staring unseeingly into the centerpiece of holly and mistletoe arranged by Alphonse so lovingly. “We must either turn this into a kind of a wake, and kneel as we feast, or we must try to rise above it somehow.”
“I don’t see why,” Jimmie argued. “I’m in favor of each man howling informally as he listeth.”
“Let’s drink her health anyhow,” David insisted. “I cut out the Sauterne and the claret, so we could begin on the wine at once in this contingency. Here’s to our beloved and dear absent daughter.”
“Long may she wave,” Jimmie cried, stumbling to his feet an instant after the others.
While they were still standing with their glasses uplifted, the bell rang.
“Don’t let anybody in, Alphonse,” David admonished him.
They all turned in the direction of the hall, but 303 there was no sound of parley at the front door. Eleanor had put a warning finger to her lips, as Alphonse opened it to find her standing there. She stripped off her hat and her coat as she passed through the drawing-room, and stood in her little blue cloth traveling dress between the portières that separated it from the dining-room. The six stood transfixed at the sight of her, not believing the vision of their eyes.
“You’re drinking my health,” she cried, as she stretched out her arms to them. “Oh! my dears, and my dearests, will you forgive me for running away from you?”