"She didn't feel just like coming to-night.I don't know as she's feeling very well."Mrs.Corey emitted a very small "O!"--very small, very cold,--which began to grow larger and hotter and to burn into Mrs.Lapham's soul before Mrs.Corey could add, "I'm very sorry.It's nothing serious, I hope?"Robert Chase, the painter, had not come, and Mrs.James Bellingham was not there, so that the table really balanced better without Penelope; but Mrs.Lapham could not know this, and did not deserve to know it.Mrs.Corey glanced round the room, as if to take account of her guests, and said to her husband, "I think we are all here, then,"and he came forward and gave his arm to Mrs.Lapham.
She perceived then that in their determination not to be the first to come they had been the last, and must have kept the others waiting for them.
Lapham had never seen people go down to dinner arm-in-arm before, but he knew that his wife was distinguished in being taken out by the host, and he waited in jealous impatience to see if Tom Corey would offer his arm to Irene.
He gave it to that big girl they called Miss Kingsbury, and the handsome old fellow whom Mrs.Corey had introduced as her cousin took Irene out.Lapham was startled from the misgiving in which this left him by Mrs.Corey's passing her hand through his arm, and he made a sudden movement forward, but felt himself gently restrained.
They went out the last of all; he did not know why, but he submitted, and when they sat down he saw that Irene, although she had come in with that Mr.Bellingham, was seated beside young Corey, after all.
He fetched a long sigh of relief when he sank into his chair and felt himself safe from error if he kept a sharp lookout and did only what the others did.
Bellingham had certain habits which he permitted himself, and one of these was tucking the corner of his napkin into his collar; he confessed himself an uncertain shot with a spoon, and defended his practice on the ground of neatness and common-sense.Lapham put his napkin into his collar too, and then, seeing that no one but Bellingham did it, became alarmed and took it out again slyly.
He never had wine on his table at home, and on principle he was a prohibitionist; but now he did not know just what to do about the glasses at the right of his plate.
He had a notion to turn them all down, as he had read of a well-known politician's doing at a public dinner, to show that he did not take wine; but, after twiddling with one of them a moment, he let them be, for it seemed to him that would be a little too conspicuous, and he felt that every one was looking.He let the servant fill them all, and he drank out of each, not to appear odd.
Later, he observed that the young ladies were not taking wine, and he was glad to see that Irene had refused it, and that Mrs.Lapham was letting it stand untasted.
He did not know but he ought to decline some of the dishes, or at least leave most of some on his plate, but he was not able to decide; he took everything and ate everything.
He noticed that Mrs.Corey seemed to take no more trouble about the dinner than anybody, and Mr.Corey rather less;he was talking busily to Mrs.Lapham, and Lapham caught a word here and there that convinced him she was holding her own.He was getting on famously himself with Mrs.Corey, who had begun with him about his new house;he was telling her all about it, and giving her his ideas.
Their conversation naturally included his architect across the table; Lapham had been delighted and secretly surprised to find the fellow there; and at something Seymour said the talk spread suddenly, and the pretty house he was building for Colonel Lapham became the general theme.
Young Corey testified to its loveliness, and the architect said laughingly that if he had been able to make a nice thing of it, he owed it to the practical sympathy of his client.
"Practical sympathy is good," said Bromfield Corey;and, slanting his head confidentially to Mrs.Lapham, he added, "Does he bleed your husband, Mrs.Lapham? He's a terrible fellow for appropriations!"Mrs.Lapham laughed, reddening consciously, and said she guessed the Colonel knew how to take care of himself.
This struck Lapham, then draining his glass of sauterne, as wonderfully discreet in his wife.Bromfield Corey leaned back in his chair a moment."Well, after all, you can't say, with all your modern fuss about it, that you do much better now than the old fellows who built such houses as this.""Ah," said the architect, "nobody can do better than well.
Your house is in perfect taste; you know I've always admired it; and I don't think it 's at all the worse for being old-fashioned.What we've done is largely to go back of the hideous style that raged after they forgot how to make this sort of house.But I think we may claim a better feeling for structure.We use better material, and more wisely; and by and by we shall work out something more characteristic and original.""With your chocolates and olives, and your clutter of bric-a-brac?""All that's bad, of course, but I don't mean that.I don't wish to make you envious of Colonel Lapham, and modesty prevents my saying, that his house is prettier,--though I may have my convictions,--but it's better built.
All the new houses are better built.Now, your house----""Mrs.Corey's house," interrupted the host, with a burlesque haste in disclaiming responsibility for it that made them all laugh."My ancestral halls are in Salem, and I'm told you couldn't drive a nail into their timbers;in fact, I don't know that you would want to do it.""I should consider it a species of sacrilege,"answered Seymour, "and I shall be far from pressing the point I was going to make against a house of Mrs.Corey's."This won Seymour the easy laugh, and Lapham silently wondered that the fellow never got off any of those things to him.
