“Baskerville took Anne out to dinner.”
The dinner fulfilled all of Anne’s expectations. The Thorndykes were socially accomplished, and Judge Woodford had been a professional diner-out since the days when President Buchanan had made him a third secretary of legation at Paris. Anne Clavering found herself adopted into the small circle, so different in birth and rearing from her own, by the freemasonry of good sense and good manners—in which she, however, was the equal of anybody.
Mrs. Luttrell shone at her own table, and the restraint she put upon her own tongue revealed her to be, when she chose, a person of perfect tact. And, indeed, her most courageous speeches were matters of calculation, and were in themselves a species of tact. When entertaining guests in her own house, however, she showed only the amiable side of her nature; and she was always amiable to Richard Baskerville, the one human being in the world whom she really loved and feared. Anne was extremely amused at the attitude of Baskerville to Mrs. Luttrell, shown by such things as calling her by her first name and hectoring her affectionately,—all of which Mrs. Luttrell took meekly, only prophesying that if he ever married, he would make an intolerable husband.
Anne Clavering noted that among these people of old and fixed positions there was a great deal of chaff, while among the new people there was always great formality. The manners of the one set were simple, and of the latter elaborate. She also saw, being of a quick eye, that there were many differences in little things between the old and the new. The new had a different and complex fork for every course, but Mrs. Luttrell had, except some very old-fashioned oyster forks, the same handsome, plain old forks which had been in use in her family since silver forks were first adopted. There was no opportunity, if she had wished, to emulate a brand-new Washington hostess, who mentioned to a distinguished guest that he was eating his fish with the wrong fork. And Mrs. Luttrell had the temerity to have on the table her splendid old decanters, in which was served the very last old port in Washington, “laid down by papa in ’59.”
When the dinner was over they closed around the drawing-room fire and talked cosily, as people can seldom talk in the hurrying, rushing twentieth century; and then Mrs. Thorndyke, at Mrs. Luttrell’s request, went to the grand piano and sang sweetly some songs as old-fashioned as the piano. Anne remembered with a blush the professional singers who were considered essential to the Clavering house after one of the large, magnificent, and uncomfortable dinners which were a burden and an anxiety to all of the Clavering family.
When the carriages were announced, everybody was surprised at the lateness of the hour. Anne went up to Mrs. Luttrell and thanked her sincerely and prettily for one of the pleasantest evenings she had ever spent in Washington. Mrs. Luttrell, who declared herself totally indifferent to blame or praise from one of the new people, was hugely flattered by this expression from a Clavering.
Baskerville, having antique manners, put Anne in her carriage, and contrived to express in this small action a part of the admiration and homage he felt for her. Anne, driving home in the November night, experienced a strong and sudden revulsion of feeling from the quiet enjoyment of the evening. Bitterness overwhelmed her. “How much happier and better off are those people than I and all my kind!” she thought. “They have no struggles to make, no slights to swallow or avenge, no social mortifications, nothing to hide, to fear, to be ashamed of, while I—“ She buried her face in her hands as she leaned back in the carriage, and wept at the cruel thought that Baskerville would not come to her house because he did not think her father a decent man.
As she entered her own street she caught sight of Count Rosalka, a young attaché, helping Élise Denman out of a cab at the corner. Élise ran along the street and under the porte-cochère as Anne got out of the carriage and walked up the steps. Élise’s eyes were dancing, her mouth smiling; she looked like a bacchante.