Mrs. Fielden had insisted upon it that one actress at least should be asked. "What is a supper-party without an actress?" she had said. And Mrs. Travers at present acting in Mr. Pinero's new play, was the first to arrive.
"I wonder if you know any of our friends who are coming to-night?" said Palestrina. "We expect Squash Bosanquet and Dickie Fenwick." Palestrina then broke down, because we had no idea if these two men had ever answered to these names in their lives. Also she blushed, which spoilt it all, and Mrs. Fielden began to smile.
Mrs. Travers came to the party in a very simple black evening gown, and Bosanquet and Charles Fenwick came almost immediately afterwards. Anthony Crawshay was amongst the friends whom we had invited, because, Palestrina said, as we did not seem to know many fast people, we had better have some one who was sporting. There was an artist whom we considered Bohemian because he wore his hair long, but he disappointed us by coming in goloshes.
Altogether we were eight at supper. There was an attractive menu, and the long-stemmed champagne-glasses were felt to be a distinct challenge to quiet behaviour.
Palestrina thought that if she were going to be really fast she had better talk about divorce, and I heard her ask Anthony in a diffident whisper if he had read any divorce cases lately. Anthony looked startled, and in his loud voice exclaimed, "Egad! I hope you haven't!" Palestrina coloured with confusion, and I frowned heavily at her, which made it worse.
Mrs. Travers seemed to have taken it into her head that Palestrina was philanthropic, and she talked a great deal about factory girls, and Bosanquet talked about methylated ether. What it was that provoked his remarks on this subject I cannot now recall, nor why he discussed it without intermission almost throughout the entire evening, but I have a distinct recollection of hearing him dinning out the phrase "methylated ether."
It was, I think, the dullest party that even Palestrina and I have ever given, and I blame Mrs. Fielden for this. Mrs. Fielden refused to be the centre of the room. She became an onlooker at the party which she had planned, and she smiled affectionately at us both, and watched, I think, to see how the party would go off.
The long-stemmed champagne-glasses were hardly used. Several people said to me jocosely, "How is South Africa?" and to this I could think of no more suitable reply than, "It's all right." We longed for even the Pirate Boy to make a little disturbance. Palestrina whispered to me that she thought I might throw a piece of bread at some one, or do something. But the action she suggested seemed to me to be in too daring contrast to the general tone of the evening; and really, as I murmured back to her, there seemed to be very little point in throwing my bread at a guest who had done me no harm.
"I wish," she said to me when we returned to the drawing-room, "that I knew some daring little French songs. In books the girl always sings daring little French songs, and afterwards every one begins to be vulgar and delightful, like those people in 'The Christian.' I think I'll light a cigarette." She did so, and choked a little, and then wondered if Thomas would like her to smoke, and threw the cigarette into the fire. The Bohemian, who had travelled considerably, asked for a map, and told us of his last year's journeyings, tracing out the route of them for us on the map with a pin.
And Mrs. Fielden was smiling all the time.