Seated at Mrs. Stratton’s right hand, at dinner in her pleasant dining-room, Mr. Bludgeon, in evening dress, unfolding his napkin, looked almost amiable. When he caught sight of the soup plate succeeding the one on which his oysters had been served, his face actually expanded into a smile.
“Very nice, very nice, upon my word,” he said, indicating the object before him with a condescending wave of his hand. “I had always been told you Americans do things in very lavish style, but, this, really, is more than I could have expected, don’t you know?”
Annetta was radiant, although she could not exactly understand why her guest’s gratitude for courtesy extended took this form. Evidently Simonson’s china, silver, roses, bonbons, decorations, were on a scale surpassing anything in Bludgeon’s previous experience of America. She felt she could afford then and there to forgive Cornelia Bennett for having had Simonson for lunch.
The dinner, rather a weight upon the Sutphenites, dragged heavily along, but it ended at last, and after coffee and cigars (Simonson’s cigars!) the gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room.
“I am sorry to say,” explained Mrs. Stratton to her guest-in-chief, “that as we in Sutphen keep rather early hours, the reception given for you at my friend Mrs. Grindstone’s will have already begun. Mr. and Mrs. Grindstone left some time ago, with apologies to you. It is too bad that we should have to deprive ourselves of you; but I hope you will not quite forget our home and our little efforts to be agreeable.”
“No, I shall not, by George,” exclaimed the author, who had become a trifle more relaxed; “and when I tell them at home about it, they will hardly believe me, don’t you know!”
This put the apex upon Mrs. Stratton’s pyramid of joy. In her own carriage, the author seated beside her, facing her husband and Cornelia Bennett, they drove to Mrs. Grindstone’s house on the outskirts of the town.
The most novel revelation of Mrs. Grindstone’s party, at first sight, was that all the gas jets in the house were lighted and blazing—reckless of the monthly gas bill. This was something unprecedented, as also the cloak-room (Simonson’s invention), the white-capped maids (Simonson’s), and the four pieces of music hidden by Simonson in a bower of palms on the stairway. Only the familiar stooping figure of old Mr. Grindstone in his worn frock coat with a large new white silk tie, brought the public to a realizing sense of where they were. If Simonson could have tucked away the host into the hall closet, along with superfluous wraps, umbrellas, and old overshoes, that functuary would have been very much relieved.
Mrs. Grindstone, on the contrary, who might always be reckoned upon to come out strong in the matter of finery, wore a brave new gown of black silk and net, upon which had been let loose a whole collection of green beaded butterflies. The splendor of this reality at once effaced the tradition of the velvet cloak. Mrs. Grindstone’s flaxen gray hair strained to the summit of her head, was there surmounted by an aigrette of green feathers, caught by a diamond brooch. Directly she saw her, Mrs. Stratton knew why her friend had hurried home at the conclusion of the dinner. Mrs. Grindstone had not been willing to expend the first blush of success of such a toilette upon another woman’s entertainment.
“Isn’t she splendid?” whispered Cornelia. “No such dressing has ever been seen in Sutphen, in my time.”