At dinner the conversation was necessarily general, and, as such, is not worth reporting. No general conversation, one finds, is of much value when set down in black and white. It is not even grammatical nowadays. To be more correct, let us note that the talk lay between Etta and M. de Chauxville, who had a famous supply of epigrams and bright nothings delivered in such a way that they really sounded like wisdom. Etta was equal to him, sometimes capping his sharp wit, sometimes contenting herself with silvery laughter. Maggie Delafield was rather distraite, as De Chauxville noted. The girl’s dislike for him was an iron that entered the quick of his vanity anew every time he saw her. There was no petulance in the aversion, such as he had perceived with other maidens who were only resenting a passing negligence or seeking to pique his curiosity. This was a steady and, if you will, unmaidenly aversion, which Maggie conscientiously attempted to conceal.
Paul, it is to be feared, was what hostesses call heavy in hand. He laughed where he saw something to laugh at, but not elsewhere, which in some circles is considered morose and in bad form. He joined readily enough in the conversation, but originated nothing. Those topics which occupied his mind did not present themselves as suitable to this occasion. His devotion to Etta was quite obvious, and he was simple enough not to care that it should be so.
Maggie was by turns quite silent and very talkative. When Paul and Etta were speaking together she never looked at them, but fixedly at her own plate, at a decanter, or a salt-cellar. When she spoke she addressed her remarks—valueless enough in themselves—exclusively to the man she disliked, Claude de Chauxville.
There was something amiss in the pretty little room. There were shadows seated around that pretty little table ` quatre, beside the guests in their pretty dresses and their black coats; silent cold shadows, who ate nothing, while they chilled the dainty food and took the sweetness from the succulent dishes. These shadows had crept in unawares, a silent partie carrie, to take their phantom places at the table, and only Etta seemed able to jostle hers aside and talk it down. She took the whole burden of the conversation upon her pretty shoulders, and bore it through the little banquet with unerring skill and unflinching good humor. In the midst of her merriest laughter, the clever gray eyes would flit from one man’s face to the other. Paul had been brought here to ask her to marry him. Claude de Chauxville had been invited that he might be tacitly presented to his successful rival. Maggie was there because she was a woman and made the necessary fourth. Puppets all, and two of them knew it. And some of us know it all our lives. We are living, moving puppets. We let ourselves be dragged here and pushed there, the victim of one who happens to have more energy of mind, a greater steadfastness of purpose, a keener grasp of the situation called life. We smirk and smile, and lose the game because we have begun by being anvils, and are afraid of trying to be hammers.
But Etta Sydney Bamborough had to deal with metal of a harder grain than the majority of us. Claude de Chauxville was for the moment forced to assume the humble rtle of anvil because he had no choice. Maggie Delafield was passive for the time being, because that which would make her active was no more than a tiny seedling in her heart. The girl bid fair to be one of those women who develop late, who ripen slowly, like the best fruit.
During the drive to the opera house the two women in Etta’s snug little brougham were silent. Etta had her thoughts to occupy her. She was at the crucial point of a difficult game. She could not afford to allow even a friend to see so much as the corners of the cards she held.
In the luxurious box it was easily enough arranged—Etta and Paul together in front, De Chauxville and Maggie at the other corner of the box.
“I have asked my friend Karl Steinmetz to come in during the evening,” said Paul to Etta when they were seated. “He is anxious to make your acquaintance. He is my—prime minister over in Russia.”
Etta smiled graciously.
“It is kind of him,” she answered, “to be anxious to make my acquaintance.”