The thing was so obvious George laughed outright. Even Sylvia conceded its ugly, unintentional humour. A smile drew at the corners of her mouth. If she could enjoy that she was, indeed, for the moment nearer.
Two servants glided around with trays.
Blodgett gulped the contents of his glass and smacked his lips.
"That fellow of mine," he boasted, "has his own blend. Not bad."
Sylvia drank hers with Dalrymple, while Betty over there shook her head. Probably it was his ungraceful inheritance that made George dislike a glass in Sylvia's fingers. Dalrymple slipped away.
"Dividends in the smoking-room!" Blodgett roared.
"Dalrymple's drawing dividends," George thought.
The procession for the dining-room formed and disbanded. Blodgett had Mrs. Sinclair and Sylvia at either hand. It was natural enough, but George resented the arrangement, particularly with Dalrymple next to Sylvia on the other side. Betty sat between Dalrymple and Lambert. George was nearly opposite, flanked by fluffy clothes and hair; and straightway each ear was choked with fluffy chatter—the theatre; the opera, from the side of sartorial criticism; the east coast of Florida—"but why should I go so far to see exciting bathing suits out of season and tea tables wabbling under palm trees?"—a scandal or two—that is such details as were permissible in his presence. He divided his ears sufficiently to catch snatches from neighbouring sections of the table.
"Of course, we'll keep out of it."
It was Wandel, speaking encouragingly to a pretty girl. Out of what? Confound this chatter! Oh! The war, of course. It was the one remark of serious import that reached him throughout the dinner, and the country faced that possibility, and an increasing unrest of labour, and grave financial questions. The diners might have been people who had fled to a high mountain to escape an invasion, or happy ones who lived on a peak from which the menace was invisible. But it wasn't that. At other social levels, he knew, there was the same closing of the shutters, the same effort to create an enjoyable sunlight in a cloistered room. On the summit, he honestly believed, men did more and thought more. Perhaps where sensible men gathered together the curtains weren't drawn against grave fires in an abnormal night. Then it was the women. Did all men, like Wandel, choose to keep such things from the women? Did the women want them kept? Hang it! Then let them have the vote. Make them talk.