Mrs. Daye always gave composite dinner-parties, and this was one of them. “If you ask nobody but military people to meet each other,” she was in the habit of saying, “you hear nothing but the price of chargers and the prospects of the Staff Corps. If you make your list up of civilians, the conversation consists of abuse of their official superiors and the infamous conduct of the Secretary of State about the rupee.” On this occasion Mrs. Daye had reason to anticipate that the price of chargers would be varied by the grievances of the Civil Service, and that a touring Member of Parliament would participate in the discussion who knew nothing about either; and she felt that her blend would be successful. She could give herself up to the somewhat fearful enjoyment she experienced in Mr. Ancram’s society. Mrs. Daye was convinced that nobody appreciated Mr. Ancram more subtly than she did. She saw a great deal of jealousy of him in Calcutta society, whereas she was wont to declare that, for her part, she found nothing extraordinary in the way he had got in – a man of his brains, you know! And if Calcutta resented this imputation upon its own brains in ever so slight a degree, Mrs. Daye saw therein more jealousy of the fact that her family circle was about to receive him. When it had once opened for that purpose and closed again, Mrs. Daye hoped vaguely that she would be sustained for the new and exacting duty of living up to Mr. Ancram.
“Please look at Rhoda,” she begged, in a conversational buzz that her blend had induced.
Mr. Ancram looked, deliberately, but with appreciation. “She seems to be sufficiently entertained,” he said.
“Oh, she is! She’s got a globe-trotter. Haven’t you found out that Rhoda simply loves globe-trotters? She declares that she renews her youth in them.”
“Her first impressions, I suppose she means?”
“Oh, as to what she means– ”
Mrs. Daye broke off irresolutely, and thoughtfully conveyed a minute piece of roll to her lips. The minute piece of roll was Mr. Ancram’s opportunity to complete Mrs. Daye’s suggestion of a certain interesting ambiguity in her daughter; but he did not take it. He continued to look attentively at Miss Daye, who appeared, as he said, to be sufficiently entertained, under circumstances which seemed to him inadequate. Her traveller was talking emphatically, with gestures of elderly dogmatism, and she was deferentially listening, an amusement behind her eyes with which the Chief Secretary to the Government at Bengal was not altogether unfamiliar. He had seen it there before, on occasions when there was apparently nothing to explain it.
“It would be satisfactory to see her eating her dinner,” he remarked, with what Mrs. Daye felt to be too slight a degree of solicitude. She was obliged to remind herself that at thirty-seven a man was apt to take these things more as matters of fact, especially – and there was a double comfort in this reflection – a man already well up in the Secretariat and known to be ambitious. “Is it possible,” Mr. Ancram went on, somewhat absently, “that these are Calcutta roses? You must have a very clever gardener.”
“No” – and Mrs. Daye pitched her voice with a gentle definiteness that made what she was saying interesting all round the table – “they came from the Viceroy’s place at Barrackpore. Lady Emily sent them to me: so sweet of her, I thought! I always think it particularly kind when people in that position trouble themselves about one; they must have so many demands upon their time.”
The effect could not have been better. Everybody looked at the roses with an interest that might almost be described as respectful; and Mrs. Delaine, whose husband was Captain Delaine of the Durham Rifles, said that she would have known them for Their Excellencies’ roses anywhere – they always did the table with that kind for the Thursday dinners at Government House – she had never known them to use any other.
Mrs. St. George, whose husband was the Presidency Magistrate, found this interesting. “Do they really?” she exclaimed. “I’ve often wondered what those big Thursday affairs were like. Fancy – we’ve been in Calcutta through three cold weathers now, and have never been asked to anything but little private dinners at Government House – not more than eight or ten, you know!”
“Don’t you prefer that?” asked Mrs. Delaine, taking her quenching with noble equanimity.
“Well, of course one sees more of them,” Mrs. St. George admitted. “The last time we were there, about a fortnight ago, I had a long chat with Lady Emily. She is a sweet thing, and perfectly wild at being out of the school-room!” Mrs. St. George added that it was a charming family, so well brought up; and this seemed to be a matter of special congratulation as affecting the domestic arrangements of a Viceroy. There was a warmth and an emphasis in the corroboration that arose which almost established relations of intimacy between Their Excellencies and Mrs. Daye’s dinner-party. Mrs. Daye’s daughter listened in her absorbed, noting manner; and when the elderly gentleman remarked with a certain solemnity that they were talking of the Scansleighs, he supposed, the smile with which she said “Evidently” was more pronounced than he could have had any right to expect.
“They seem to be delightful people,” continued the elderly gentleman, earnestly.
“I daresay,” Miss Daye replied, with grave deliberation. “They’re very decorative,” she added absently. “That’s a purely Indian vegetable, Mr. Pond. Rather sticky, and without the ghost of a flavour; but you ought to try it, as an experience, don’t you think?”
It occurred to Mrs. Daye sometimes that Mr. Ancram was unreasonably difficult to entertain, even for a Chief Secretary. It occurred to her more forcibly than usual on this particular evening, and it was almost with trepidation that she produced the trump card on which she had been relying to provoke a lively suit of amiabilities. She produced it awkwardly too; there was always a slight awkwardness, irritating to so habile a lady, in her manner of addressing Mr. Ancram, owing to her confessed and painful inability to call him “Lewis” – yet. “Oh,” she said finally, “I haven’t congratulated you on your ‘Modern Influence of the Vedic Books.’ I assure you, in spite of its being in blue paper covers and printed by Government I went through it with the greatest interest. And there were no pictures either,” Mrs. Daye added, with the ingenuousness which often clings to Anglo-Indian ladies somewhat late in life.
Mr. Ancram was occupied for the moment in scrutinising the contents of a dish which a servant patiently presented to his left elbow. It was an ornate and mottled conception visible through a mass of brown jelly, and the man looked disappointed when so important a guest, after perceptible deliberation, decisively removed his eyeglass and shook his head. Mrs. Daye was in the act of reminding herself of the probably impaired digestion of a Chief Secretary, when he seemed suddenly recalled to the fact that she had spoken.
“Really?” he said, looking fully at her, with a smile that had many qualities of compensation. “My dear Mrs. Daye, that was doing a good deal for friendship, wasn’t it?”
His eyes were certainly blue and expressive when he allowed them to be, his hostess thought, and he had the straight, thin, well-indicated nose which she liked, and a sensitive mouth for a man. His work as part of the great intelligent managing machine of the Government of India overimpressed itself upon the stamp of scholarship Oxford had left on his face, which had the pallor of Bengal, with fatigued lines about the eyes, lines that suggested to Mr. Ancram’s friends the constant reproach of over-exertion. A light moustache, sufficiently