"I think your method, Mr. Desmond," said the Chemist, "must be some power you have found of concentrating all the rays of a pencil of light, disposing in some way of their heating power. I should like to know if this is a fluid agent or some solid substance."
"I should like to see," interrupted another gentleman, "the anvil where Mr. Desmond forges his beams. Could not we get up a party, Miss Stuart, an evening-party, to see a little bit of sunlight struck out,--on a moonshiny night, too?"
"In my lectures on chemistry," began Mr. Jasper. He was interrupted by Mr. Stuart.
"You will have to write your lectures over again. Mr. Desmond has introduced such new ideas upon chemistry that he will give you a chance for a new course."
"You forget," said the Chemist, "that the laws of science are the same and immutable. My lectures, having once been written, are written. I only see that Mr. Desmond has developed theories which I have myself laid down. As our friend the Artist will tell us, sunlight is sunlight, wherever you find it, whether you catch it on a carpet or on a lady's face."
"But I am quite ashamed," said Miss Stuart, "that we ladies so seldom have the sunlight on our faces. I think we might agree to Mr. Green's proposal to go out somewhere and see where the sunbeams really are made. We shut them out with our curtains, and turn night into a make-believe day."
"But the sun is so trying!" put in Miss Lester. "Just think how much more becoming candle-light is! There is not one of my dresses which would stand a broad sunbeam."
"I see," said Mr. Stuart, "that, when Mr. Desmond has perfected his studies, we shall be able to roof over the whole of Boston with our woven sunlight by day and gas-light by night, quite independent of fogs and uncertain east-winds."
So much of the dinner-conversation dwelt upon what was supposed to be interesting to me, and a part of my profession. It was laggingly done; for presently the talk fell into an easier flow,--a wonder about Mrs. This, and speculation concerning Mr. That. Mr. Blank had gone to Europe with half his family, and some of them knew why he had taken the four elder children, and others wondered why he had left the rest behind. I was talked into a sort of spasmodic interest about a certain Maria, who was at the ball the night before, but could not be at the dinner to-day. In an effort to show me why she would be especially charming to me, her personal appearance, the style of her conversation and dress, her manner of life, all were pulled to pieces, and discussed, dissected, and classified, in the same way as I would handle one of the Composite.
Miss Stuart spoke but little. She fluttered gayly over the livelier conversation, but seemed glad to fall back into a sort of wearied repose, where she appeared to be living in a higher atmosphere than the rest of us. This air of repose the others seemed to be trying to reach, when they got no farther than dulness; and some of the gentlemen, I thought, made too great efforts in their attempts to appear bored. Especially one of them exerted himself greatly to gape so often in the face of a lady with whom he was striving to keep up an appearance of conversation, that the exertion itself must have wearied him.