The butler had entered and announced dinner and the procession was about to start for the dining-room. “Don’t you think this is positively languishing, Mr. West?” said Fanny, as she took the arm offered her, and when he laughed aloud, she went on: “It’s been the dream of my life to go to a dinner-party.” She sighed deeply. “And yet there’s something sad when your dream is realized, isn’t there?”
“Well, I must say you’re complimentary, Miss Fanny,” West exclaimed.
“Oh, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean anything personal to you.”
“What did you mean then?”
“Well, I guess I mean that there won’t ever be any first dinner-party for me again. I’m just foolish, that’s all.”
After helping Fanny in her seat, West took his place beside her. He had been bored on learning that this child was to be his table companion; now he felt somewhat amused.
“I can’t say that any of my dreams have been realized,” he remarked, unfolding his napkin.
“You poor thing!” Fanny cried. Then she looked searchingly at his face. “You don’t show any very great disappointment.”
Fanny glanced quickly around the table: many of the faces were partly concealed from her by the masses of roses and ferns in the centre. There was Guy, talking with that queer little woman from the Argentine Republic, the wife of an under-secretary or something. Fanny wondered vaguely how she had happened to be invited. Oh, she was supposed to be intellectual or literary or something like that. Then Fanny smiled at the thought of the way poor Guy would be bored. Suddenly she turned to Franklin West.
“Who do you think is the prettiest woman here?”