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Horace was slightly surprised on coming down dressed for dinner to meet in his wife’s sitting-room a lady of such widely-spread picture-postcard fame. He had already seen Anastasia twice in the musical comedy which she had made famous, but his wife’s introduction arrested him.
“Horace,” she said, “this is Helen of Troy.”
For a moment he was baffled by memory, and then suddenly the old sacrifice of the impetuous girl who was now his strangely sensible wife came back to him. He held out his hand at once.
“I am most happy to meet Helen of Troy,” he said, smiling.
There was no one at dinner, and the house-hold dignity, the little vivid picture of delicate repose lived long in Anastasia’s memory. Horace was an excellent host, and Edith was a loadstone for other people’s minds. She drew out their best with a silent magnetic skill, hardly participating so much as forming an atmosphere in which it was very pleasant and easy to speak.
“I always could say anything to Edith,” observed Anastasia to her host, “but I had quite supposed that I should have to talk to you.”
Horace laughed.
“We’re so simple and dull,” he said. “We are like an old tune to a practised singer; we give her an easy swing.”
“Oh, you’re not dull,” said Anastasia; “it’s rather an art to be as simple as all this, and I’ve never met it in my own people. We’re smart, we’re clever, we’re attractive, we’re the most charming people in the world, but we’re not simple.”