"Oh, dear, I haven't any idea what I'm to do."
"Well, you just go in and wave your fan disconsolately, and I'll do the rest. It will be dreadful, of course, but then, no one ever expects them to be otherwise. Now I think the best way is for us to run over it, and then little things will come to you."
VI
DOWNSTAIRS the Dean and Mrs. Norris had begun receiving their guests, most of the receiving being done by the Dean. His wife, whose trail was like that of a runaway astral body, was here, there, and everywhere, calling, ordering, laughing.
The Misses Forbes, invariably the first comers, had taken possession of front-row seats. This year Miss Edith had the Burnham lace—an heirloom whose glory could on no account be dimmed by a tri-partite division—and Miss Annie had the Burnham pearls. They were a modest string, perhaps, but they lived on after more spectacular ones became gummy. As for Miss Jennie, the youngest, aged sixty-five, she was something of a philosopher, being the community's sole theosophist, and she regarded her sisters' pleasure in their baubles with amusement. Nor could she be drawn into a discussion of their ultimate disposition, a nice problem, for other Burnhams and Forbeses were there none. "Why not give them to the museum?" she had once suggested, to the sorrow of her sisters, who hated to see her cynical side. Worse than that, she was a radical and had boldly come out for the open shop, or the closed shop, whichever was the radical one, and she talked very wildly indeed of Unions and Compensation Bills.
Miss Elfrida Balch had arrived, and likewise her brother, the artist. Miss Balch was a lady of almost crystalline refinement. She was tall and fair, with a delicacy of complexion that stood in no need of retailed bloom. She might have passed for the daughter of a kindly old Saxon chieftain—it was, indeed, generally known that she sprang from the seed of Saxon kings—who, firm in the belief that no young man was her equal in birth or behaviour, had insisted upon her declining into a spinsterhood which increased in refinement as it did in service. Sentimental persons held that she came by that manner from association with Art in her brother's studio. Others, of a more sardonic turn, said that her manner was that of one who continually smelled a bad smell, and that if she got it by looking at her brother's pictures they didn't wonder.
Leofwin Balch was not a personable gentleman. The early Saxon strain in him had taken the form of obesity, a tendency not confined, if we may trust the evidence of scholars, to descendants of Saxon kings. To those who had little sympathy with genius in its more alarming shapes, his fair chin whisker seemed an absurdity. The more discriminating, however, welcomed it. Anything might be expected of a man with a chin whisker which some one, with more imagination than restraint, had described as an "attenuated shredded wheat biscuit seen through a glass darkly." Leofwin's work had of late years suffered on account of a rheumatism which defied medicine. He had sacrificed his tonsils and nine teeth upon the altar of Art with little or no relief, and it was now feared by those closest to him, his sister and himself, that he would never again approach the promise given in his "Willows." "Willows" had received an honourable mention at the Exhibition—just which Exhibition, was a subject of controversy among the uninitiated—and had been purchased by a rich baronet in Suffolk. The Balches had seen it in his gallery, and it had become an open secret that hanging in the same room were a Constable and a John Opie.
Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had arrived and was already with a group of the great around her chair. She was wearing the famous Lee-Satterlee dog collar, and her hair had been carefully dressed for the occasion. Such items alone would have borne witness to the importance of the Vernal, had she not in addition chosen to carry the Court fan. This fan, which was known as the "Court fan" to distinguish it from all other fans in the world, had been given her by the Court ladies when she and her husband, the late Ambassador, had departed upon the arrival of the new Administration's appointee. Its sticks were mother-of-pearl, encrusted with diamonds, and on its silk was the cruel story of Pyramus and Thisbe set forth in brilliant colours, but in what wondrous manner no one quite knew. For it was true that Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had walked with kings, danced with dukes, and played croquet with counts, and it was therefore inevitable that she should be regarded as the Empress of Woodbridge. She would have been considered so quite apart from the fact that she had great possessions—in addition to the Court fan and the dog collar—possessions which were commonly supposed to be destined for the college, the Lee-Satterlees having no issue. Accordingly, Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee was allowed liberties unthinkable in another; but, be it said to her credit, she never abused them. Since she, or at least her property, was to take such an active part in Woodbridge affairs when she passed into the next world, it was only reasonable that she should take an active part while she was still in this; and it is safe to say that no one knew more about college affairs than she. Still, no one ever thought of calling her a nuisance. When, occasionally, she did quietly suggest that possibly such-and-such a course might be a wise one or that such-and-such a man might be the one to appoint to such-and-such a vacancy, it would be discovered that, with singular insight, she had made a perfect suggestion. Whereas, therefore, it might be said that she was a despot, it was universally agreed that she was a benevolent one and an enlightened one, and many even went so far as to fear that her death might actually prove a loss.
The library was filling fast. Mrs. Norris, casting a rather wild eye into it occasionally, would perhaps signal out an individual for a mission that somehow in the general run of things could not conceivably be completed. For example, her eye, on one of these expeditions, happened to alight on a gentleman of the Physics Department, a gentleman with a gold tooth and a loud laugh, who represented a somewhat larger group of instructors than the best Tutors' Lane families cared to acknowledge. The gentleman responded with an alacrity that did him credit, nor did he quail before the steady gaze of Mrs. Norris, which seemed to wonder if she hadn't been a little unwise in placing such trust in so uninteresting a vessel. She asked him, however, to see if the musicians had found a good place to put their hats and coats, and as there were several musicians, some of whom had not arrived, he was not restored to his nervous and too friendly mate until the charades were over.