“Only think,” she cried, “she has asked Jack and me to lead the cotillon! Isn’t that sweet of her? Oh, I do think she is the dearest thing! Though I must say I’d rather have been asked to the dinner. That’s going to be perfectly elegant. I heard it was to be given for somebody, but I don’t know who it could be. It might be for Frankie Taliaferro. Mrs. Osborne has asked her to come up for it.”
Pet’s remarks rushed on until I soon found myself carried along the tide of her enthusiasm, which she assured me was shared by every girl in town.
I shall not attempt to describe Sallie’s success. The weather, the people, fortune itself, was in her favor, and the whole afternoon was admirable. I confess, however, that it was with some slight curiosity that I awaited the dinner.
Sallie’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone with an unusual brilliancy as she greeted us, but the proverbial feather would have felled any one of her guests when Payson offered his arm to Mrs. Frank Mayo, who rose out of a shadowy corner in a high-throated gown and led us to the dining-room. I caught Sallie’s eye as she laid her hand on Frank Mayo’s arm, and she gave me a comical look, half imploring, half defiant.
I was guilty of wondering if Sallie had been demented when she planned that dinner-table, for this is the way we found ourselves:
Next to Frank Mayo came Alice Asbury, encased in freezing dignity. Brian Beck, at his worst, supported her on the other hand. After Brian were Louise King and Charlie Hardy, both looking to my practised eyes exceedingly stiff and uncomfortable. I had no time to wonder if the blow had fallen, in casting a glance at the other guests. Nellie Mayo was admirably situated between Charlie Hardy and Payson Osborne, both of whom were deference itself to her. The difference in her simple attire from the full dress all around her in no wise disturbed her unworldly spirit. She looked with quiet admiration at the handsome shoulders of Louise and Rachel, evidently never dreaming that the babies’ mother might be expected to follow their example in dress.
Grace Beck, sitting by Norris Whitehouse, would have an excellent opportunity of cementing or breaking off the prospective match, which as yet was unannounced, between her sister and his nephew. Rachel would be polite, but not wildly entertaining, to Asbury; but he could count on me to be decent to him, while I snatched crumbs of intellectual comfort from Percival on my other hand. But Sallie had placed the funereal Clinton Frost between that rattle-pated Frankie Taliaferro and her lively self, probably with the laudable intention of seeing whether his face would be permanently disfigured by a smile. Nor was the poor wretch out of Brian Beck’s reach, but was made the objective point of Brian’s liveliest sallies, the hero of his most piquant and impossible stories, which convulsed us until I felt sure that the irritated Mr. Frost must cherish a secret but lively desire to punch his head. Possibly Brian was the only one who thoroughly enjoyed himself at that ill-starred dinner, for he is keen on the scent of a precarious situation which is liable to involve everybody in total collapse. In this instance he seemed to snuff the battle from afar and stirred up all the slumbering elements of discord with unctuous satisfaction; and if it had not been for the wicked twinkle in his Irish blue eyes, which none of his victims could withstand, it might have resulted seriously. He gayly rallied Charlie Hardy on his flirtations; predicted seeing him yet brought up with a round turn in a breach-of-promise case; seemed highly edified by Frankie Taliaferro’s efforts to appear unconcerned at these pleasantries; railed openly at Clinton Frost’s being so unresponsive to the general mirth around him; shivered visibly at that gentleman’s icy retorts; playfully called attention to his wife’s endeavors to frown him into silence; and, in spite of Sallie’s angry glances, really saved her dinner from proving a dismal failure. Indeed, the cases were too real, and too much genuine misery was concealed behind impassive faces, not to prove a dangerous situation, the tension of which was relieved by Brian’s extravagant nonsense. Percival and Norris Whitehouse were sincerely amused by the wit in which Brian clothed his droll remarks. But the greatest misfortune of the dinner-giver was realized in Frank Mayo, the man who thinks he can tell a good story. The Mayos were so new to all of us that this peculiarity was not suspected until Brian discovered it and dragged it forth. He persuaded Frank to talk, listened with absorbing interest to the flattest tales, encouraged him if he flagged, and laughed until the tears came if he by chance forgot or slurred a point.
However, no one seemed to think that there was anything seriously amiss except Sallie, who is a human barometer when she has guests. She knows by instinct when they are or are not being entertained. Nor was her tact at fault in seating the people, for I was the only one laden with almost unbearable knowledge, and I fell asleep that night thinking that possibly the situation was not so unusual as it appeared to me. I dare say plenty of dinners are given with just as many unsuspected trap-doors to sensationalism.