"These people who travel all over get to be insufferable!" the little lady went on, turning to Mrs. Wishart; "they think they know everything; and they are not a bit wiser than the rest of us. You were not at the De Large's luncheon,—what a pity! I know; your cold shut you up. You must take care of that cold. Well, you lost something. This is the seventh entertainment that has been given to that English party; and every one of them has exceeded the others. There is nothing left for the eighth. Nobody will dare give an eighth. One is fairly tired with the struggle of magnificence. It's the battle of the giants over again, with a difference."
"It is not a battle with attempt to destroy," said her husband.
"Yes, it is—to destroy competition. I have been at every one of the seven but one—and I am absolutely tired with splendour. But there is really nothing left for any one else to do. I don't see how one is to go any further—without the lamp of Aladdin."
"A return to simplicity would be grateful," remarked Mrs. Wishart. "And as new as anything else could be."
"Simplicity! O, my dear Mrs. Wishart!—don't talk of simplicity. We don't want simplicity. We have got past that. Simplicity is the dream of children and country folks; and it means, eating your meat with your fingers."
"It's the sweetest way of all," said Dillwyn.
"Where did you discover that? It must have been among savages.
Children—country folks—and savages, I ought to have said."
"Orientals are not savages. On the contrary, very far exceeding in politeness any western nation I know of."
"You would set a table, then, with napkins and fingers! Or are the napkins not essential?"
"C'est selon," said Dillwyn. "In a strawberry bed, or under a cherry tree, I should vote them a nuisance. At an Asiatic grandee's table you would have them embroidered and perfumed; and one for your lap and another for your lips."