Over coffee and chartreuse in the drawing-room there was more general talk of money and marriage, and of one for the other.
"And so he married money," concluded Mrs. Gwilt-Athelstan of one they had discussed.
"Happy marriage!" Shepler called out.
"No; money talks! and this time, on my word, now, it made you want to put on those thick sealskin ear-muffs. Poor chap, and he'd been talkin' to me about the monotony of married life. 'Monotony, my boy,' I said to him, 'you don't know lovely woman!' and now he wishes jolly well that he'd not done it, you know."
Here, too, was earned by Mrs. Bines a reputation for wit that she was never able quite to destroy. There had been talk of a banquet to a visiting celebrity the night before, for which the menu was one of unusual costliness. Mr. Milbrey had dwelt with feeling upon certain of its eminent excellences, such as loin of young bear, a la Granville, and the boned quail, stuffed with goose-livers.
"Really," he concluded, "from an artistic standpoint, although large dinners are apt to be slurred and slighted, it was a creation of undoubted worth."
"And the orchestra," spoke up Mrs. Bines, who had read of the banquet, "played 'Hail to the Chef!'"
The laughter at this sally was all it should have been, even the host joining in it. Only two of those present knew that the good woman had been warned not to call "chef" "chief," as Silas Higbee did. The fact that neither should "chief" be called "chef" was impressed upon her later, in a way to make her resolve ever again to eschew both of the troublesome words.
When the guests had gone Miss Milbrey received the praise of both parents for her blameless attitude toward young Bines.
"It will be fixed when we come back from Wheatly," said that knowing young woman, "and now don't worry any more about it."