At seven o'clock Elinor Cardew, lovely in black satin, was carried down the stairs and placed in a position which commanded both the hall and the drawing-room. For some strange reason it was essential that she should see both.
At seven-thirty came in a rush:
(a)—Mr. Alston Denslow, in evening clothes and gardenia, and feeling in his right waist-coat pocket nervously every few minutes.
(b)—An excited woman of middle age, in a black silk dress still faintly bearing the creases of five days in a trunk, and accompanied by a mongrel dog, both being taken upstairs by Grayson, Mademoiselle, Pink, and Howard Cardew. (“He said Jinx was to come,” she explained breathlessly to her bodyguard. “I never knew such a boy!”)
(c)—Mr. Davis, in a frock coat and white lawn tie, and taken upstairs by Grayson, who mistook him for the bishop.
(d)—Aunt Caroline, in her diamond dog collar and purple velvet, and determined to make the best of things.
(e)—The real bishop this time, and his assistant, followed by a valet with a suitcase, containing the proper habiliments for a prince of the church while functioning. (A military term, since the Bishop had been in the army.)
(f)—A few unimportant important people, very curious, and the women uncertain about the proper garb for a festive occasion in a house of mourning.
(g)—Set of silver table vases, belated.
(h)—Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks, Mayor and Mayoress-elect. Extremely dignified.