“That is surprise number two. A real dinner-party! It will be my first invitation to one. I hope I shall behave well, and not upset my wine-glass or do anything dreadful. I shall be looking at the butler or the hostess, or the attractive guests, I know, and break something. I think I shall begin to practise calm dignity to-night, mother. Don’t you think it a good opportunity?”
“If my little girl remembers what she has always been taught,” said the fond mother, looking at the girlish, eager face, bright with the hues of early womanhood, “and will not think about herself, or the effect she is likely to produce, she will do very well. I don’t think we shall have cause to be ashamed of her. And now for a little luncheon. My appetite is really quite surprising.”
After lunch Mr. Stamford betook himself to the Archaic Club, where it was tolerably certain his friend would be found, for an hour or two. By the way, how very few married men return to their homes, even those of abounding leisure, before it is time to dress for dinner. They will sit yawning at a club, when they have nothing to do, where they care for nobody, and don’t go in for reading or even play billiards, until the late afternoon, when there is just time to catch a cab or train to reach home in the gathering twilight.
How, then, can these things be? The solution of this and other social problems must be left to the coming philosophical student, who will analyse and depict the causes of all seeming anomalies.
CHAPTER VIII
Mr. Stamford, on inquiring of the club porter, found that his friend was at home, so to speak, and had not been more than ten minutes in an apartment very unostentatiously furnished, which was devoted to the reception of strangers, when Mr. Grandison entered.
“Are you club magnates afraid that strangers may run away with a chair or two, or a spare sofa, that you are so confoundedly parsimonious in the furniture line?” inquired Stamford. “I have more than once considered the question when I have been kicking my heels here and at the Junior Pioneers, and that is the conclusion I have arrived at. It must be so. Surely there must be a legend of a dried-out squatter being driven to spout an arm-chair or a table-cover. Isn’t that it?”
“You’re in famous spirits, Harold, old man,” said the capitalist, who was by no means over-joyous of demeanour. “It’s the rain that’s done it, I suppose. ’Pon my soul, you’re right about this room. It isn’t fit for a gentleman to be put into. I must bring it before the committee. How are Mrs. Stamford and the girls? Brought them down?”
“Yes, we’re at Batty’s. I took Laura to Chatsworth this morning; I’m going out now to call for her. I saw Mrs. Grandison; she was kind enough to ask us to dine on Thursday.”
“That’s all right. Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do. The mail-phaeton will be here in five minutes, and we’ll go out home together. I want to have a talk with you. Things are not going altogether right in the family, and I want another good yarn with you. You know what I told you about Carlo? Well, he’s done worse since then, pretty near broke my heart and his mother’s.” And here Mr. Grandison looked so worried and hopeless that his friend felt himself to be grossly selfish in that he found himself in such good spirits.