“Madame,” I replied, “the exultation of your sex in all that pertains to a wedding is barely fit for the contemplation of a bachelor. Cannot you disguise your interest in some seemly manner?”
“If you’ll arrange these cards,” she retorted, “instead of concerning yourself with things of no moment to you, you’ll be of much more service. Will you be so good as to label these presents—and with as little talk as is convenient to you?”
This to me, mind, in my own house! I looked to Caroline to espouse my cause and to resent the outrage on my feelings; but she merely looked plaintively. With a sigh, which Mrs. Kit, calling after me, qualified as “avoirdupois,” I tried Mrs. Vicars, who was fluttering round the other end of the glittering table, arranging the nuptial tribute in symphonic harmonies of the Kensington amateur order. Mrs. Vicars is æsthetic at a street’s length, and, as Millicent Dixon had once spitefully said, wears her art upon her sleeves for Jays to laugh at. She was placing her own offering, something in plush and oil colour, modestly, shrinkingly, all but out of sight.
I was saying something about the spiritual reality of which all this external show was but the outward symbol, when she cut me off.
“Oh, Mr. Butterfield,” she said, “why did Cissie Bingham give Caroline a green fan?”
“Possibly, Mrs. Vicars,” I replied, “for the same order of reason that causes a miller to wear a white hat.”
“But a green one—how horrid! Look at her complexion!” And she bent the trifle coquettishly round her chin, with a well-studied sparkle over the top of it—a lesson in feminine Arts and Crafts.
“A fan, Mrs. Vicars,” I replied, “may be used either for flirtation or concealment—before marriage. Afterwards, only for the latter. In either case the appropriateness——”
“I think you are very horrid, Mr. Butterfield,” she answered, preening the openwork effervescence of her corsage and turning her shoulders to me in pique. “I believe Mrs. Bassishaw wants you.”
I tried my luck with Mrs. Bassishaw, Arthur’s mother. Mrs. Bassishaw is a comely widow, as young as is compatible with having a son on the eve of marriage, and still possessing what her friends call “excellent chances.” She made a place for me by her side.