True to the traditions of old Washington, Mrs. Macallister kept her “Fridays at Home” from November until June. The fashion of having only four days in a month did not suit her hospitable mind, and those who put first and third Tuesdays, or Wednesdays, as the case might be, on their visiting cards, drove her nearly frantic. “I was always a poor mathematician,” she informed one of her friends. “I know two and two make four, but this dot and carry one business is beyond me.” Therefore, she usually flung the offending pasteboards into the scrap basket and went serenely on her way, returning calls when it suited her pleasure and convenience.
Another innovation to which she seriously objected was having tea served in her drawing-room. Five o’clock tea at home in the bosom of her family was one thing; but having a small tea table, littered with cups and saucers and plates, stuck in one corner with an unhappy matron presiding over it was quite a different matter. Therefore, every Friday the dining-room table was regularly set and covered with tempting dishes of all descriptions; and Peggy poured tea at one end, and one of her numerous friends was always asked to take care of the hot chocolate at the other.
The callers had thinned out by the time Dick arrived, only about a dozen people, mostly men, were sitting comfortably around the table. His heart sank when he saw de Morny in close attendance upon Peggy. To his jealous eyes they appeared to be on very confidential terms indeed, which completed his misery. Mrs. Macallister beckoned to him to sit by her, so, casting a lingering glance at Peggy, he obediently carried his cup and saucer to her side of the table.
“Any further developments in the Trevor murder, Dick?” Mrs. Macallister asked him, after a few minutes’ chat about other matters.
Her words were overheard by a tall, showily dressed woman sitting across the table from them, and she leaned over and joined in the conversation.
“Yes, do tell us, Mr. Tillinghast,” she begged, with an ingratiating smile. Matilda Gleason was one of four sisters who lived in a handsome palace on Columbia Road. It was rumored to have cost in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand dollars; as to the architecture, the Gleasons said it was Early English, but having employed three architects before the house was completed, the effect was more or less startling. It had been nicknamed “Gilded Misery.”
Where the Gleasons had come from was a mooted question, but they had taken a good many staid Washingtonians into camp by the splendor of their entertainments. Mrs. Macallister had never called upon them, but in an unwary moment the chairman of the Board of Lady Managers of the Children’s Hospital had put Miss Gleason on the same committee with Mrs. Macallister, and the former had seized the opportunity to call that afternoon on the pretext of discussing business pertaining to the Hospital.
“Why, no news at all,” answered Dick, cautiously. He knew Miss Gleason’s love of scandal, and that the sisters had been nicknamed “Envy, Hatred, Malice, and All Uncharitableness” by one long-suffering matron, who had been their victim on several occasions.
“When does the case go to the Grand Jury, Dick,” called Peggy, from her end of the table.
“In about ten days, I think.”