"What was it?" he asks.
Eleanor bends her head over her hors d'oeuvre.
"The stately flower of female fortitude—of perfect wifehood."
"Ah!" he sighs, "Tennyson."
"Yes," says Mrs. Roche.
Her eyes glance round the room.
How many bright eyes glisten over their champagne, and merry tongues joke and laugh away the hours!
"I like to look at people and make histories of them," says Eleanor.
"That girl with the flaxen hair, next to the dark man on your right, was a ballet girl before she married Sir Frederick Thurston. Everybody prophesied that her high kick would lift her into the aristocracy when she first gained favour. Her name was Poppy Poppleton, and people think she poisoned her husband and let another woman swing for it."
"Why do you tell me these horrible things?" murmurs Eleanor. "They are not conducive to appetite."