Not even love’s eye penetrated the doughty visor she kept jealously closed throughout the meal. To begin with, she took the wrong fork for the raw oysters! As course succeeded course, the dreadful implement, in style so unlike those left beside other plates, actually grinned at her with every prong. Everybody must be aware of the solecism and deduce the truth that this was her first dinner party. She was sure that she caught the waiters exchanging winks over the fork, and that out of sheer malice, they allowed the tell-tale to lie in full sight. The apprehension that she would eventually be compelled to use the frail absurdity or leave untouched something—meat or game, perhaps—assailed her. While she hearkened to the flippant nothings her escort mistook for elegant small-talk, and plucked up heart for repartee, hot and cold sweats broke out all over her. Had she obeyed inclination that approximated frenzy at times, she would have crept under the table and rolled over on the floor in anguished mortification. If her sleight-of-hand had been equal to the rash adventure, she would have pocketed the wretched bugbear in desperation akin to that which makes the murderer fling far from him the weapon with which the deed was done.
When the ghastly petty torture was ended by the removal of the obnoxious article, and the substitution of one larger, plainer, and less obvious, the poor woman could have kissed the perfunctory hand that lifted the incubus from her soul.
She made other blunders, but none that were so glaring as this. Each was a lesson and a stimulus to perfect herself in the minutiæ of social etiquette. Before long, she would need no schooling; would lead, instead of following. She would know better another time, too, how to dress herself. Kitty’s gown of cream-colored faille, flounced with lace; the pale blue brocade of one woman, and the pink-and-silver bravery of a third, the maize velvet and black lace of the dowager across the table, and the mauve-and-white marvel of still another toilet, threw her apparel into blackest shade. She caught herself hoping people would think that she was in slight mourning. Besides her allotted attendant nobody at table spoke a word to her, but Kitty shot many a smile at her during the feast, and nodded several times in significance that might be approval or reassurance. Mr. Hitt, a rather handsome man with big, bold eyes, looked hard at her now and then, but did not accost her, even after he grew talkative under the faster flow of wine. His glasses were filled so often and emptied so quickly that Susie wondered to see his wife’s smiling unconcern. Perhaps she had faith in the strength of his brain.
Arthur did not touch one of the five chalices of different shapes and colors flanking his plate, and Susie was weak enough, perceiving that his conduct in this respect was exceptional, to feel mortified by his eccentricity. It was in bad taste, she thought, to offer tacit censure of the practice of host and fellow-guests. To nullify the unfavorable impression of her husband’s singularity, she sipped from each of her glasses, and dipped so deeply into the iced champagne which cooled thirst excited by highly seasoned viands, the heated room and agitation of spirits, that her bloom was more vivid when she arose from dinner than when she sat down. She was quite at ease now, and enjoying, with the zest of an artistic nature, the features of the novel scene.
The tempered light streaming over and repeated by silver, china, and cut-glass; the flower-borders that criss-crossed the lace table-cover laid over rose-colored satin, the superb costumes of the women and the faultless garments of the men; the rapid, noiseless exchange of one delicacy for another, some of the dishes being as new to her as would have been an entrée of peacocks’ brains or a salmi of nightingales’ tongues—were fascinating to one whose love of the picturesque and beautiful was a passion. This was the sort of thing she had read of in English novels and American newspapers, the enchanting mode of life for which she had yearned secretly, the atmosphere in which she should have been born.
The return in feminine file to the drawing room of part of the company was a stage of the pageant with which Jane Eyre’s life at Thornhill, and Annie Edwards’ and Ouida’s stories of hospitality at English country houses had made her familiar. She hoped nobody else noticed Arthur’s surprised stare, as the men arose and remained standing, with no movement in the direction of the escaping fair ones. With flutter and buzz and silken rustle, the dames swept through the hall back into the drawing room and disposed themselves upon couches and in easy-chairs, where tiny glasses of perfumed liqueur were handed to them.
“Exactly like a story of Oriental life,” mused entranced Susie.
Now, for the first time, Kitty had the opportunity to show to her school-friend the pointed and peculiar attentions the rhapsodies of yesterday had authorized her to expect. Up to this moment nobody had been introduced to her except the man who took her to dinner.
“I must have you know all these friends of mine,” she purred, taking Susie’s hand in both of hers, and leading her with engaging “gush” up to the mauve-and-white marvel.
“Mrs. Vansittart, this is my dear old school-fellow, Mrs. Cornell, who is going to play something for us now, and after a while, to sing several somethings, and when our audience is enlarged by the return of the men to us lorn women, she will, if properly entreated, give us some of her charming recitations. Ah! you may well look surprised. It is granted to few women to combine so many talents, but when you have heard her, you will see that I do not promise too much.