Mother and daughter—absolutely dumb in the presence of a colored waiter and a million-dollar-bride-to-be—said they guessed they wasn’t a bit hungry, and yet at each of Nat’s suggestions from the menu they nodded their heads avidly. Madelaine tried her best to put the two at their ease, but it was a sorry business. Mrs. Forge and Edith “knew how to behave in company,” which was to act as stiff and unnatural and wooden as possible and assume that every one in the dining room was watching them like jewelry thieves.
The Indian summer night was lazily warm. The windows were open. Over in the southwest corner a group of Dartmouth alumni men were holding a reunion supper.
“My stars!” whispered Mrs. Forge to Nathan, “they’re drinkin’ licker! You don’t drink licker, do you, Nathan?”
Nathan affirmed that he did not drink “licker” and then he turned his head away and looked out of the window upon his left as the college men broke into roistering song.
Outside on the curbing a young man stopped and gazed up into the room.
“Madge,” said Nathan thickly, “one night, several years ago, I stood outside like that, and looked up at a fellow and girl sitting here just like this——”
A quick exclamation. Madelaine had overturned a water glass.
“Was that you, Nathan?” she cried, astounded. “So that’s where you saw me first? Well, foolish boy, just for that, the title of your damage-making little old poem was ‘Girl-Without-a-Name.’ And I was conceited enough to think it was written for me, and no one else.”
“Perhaps,” said Nathan gravely, “it was! Who knows?”
Edith was rather glad to see Madelaine tip over her water glass. It just went to prove that even The Best People, Millionairesses, those who Had Money, did such things. She cast a glance at her mother as much as to say, “You see! She isn’t such a Thingumbob after all. She tips over her water glass at table!”