Pauline was not a bit afraid of such combinations. She knew in advance that at one of her dinners everything would “go” — it always did. And her success amused and exhilarated her so much that, even tonight, though she had come down oppressed with problems, they slipped from her before she even had time to remind herself that they were nonexistent. She had only to look at the faces gathered about that subdued radiance of old silver and scattered flowers to be sure of it. There, at the other end of the table, was her husband’s dark head, comely and resolute in its vigorous middle~age; on his right the Marchesa di San Fedele, the famous San Fedele pearls illuminating her inconspicuous black; on his left the handsome Mrs. Herman Toy, magnanimously placed there by Pauline because she knew that Manford was said to be “taken” by her, and she wanted him to be in good-humour that evening. To measure her own competence she had only to take in this group, already settling down to an evening’s enjoyment, and then let her glance travel on to the others, the young and handsome women, the well-dressed confident-looking men. Nona, grave yet eager, was talking to Manford’s legal rival, the brilliant Alfred Cosby, who was known to have said she was the cleverest girl in New York. Lita, cool and aloof, drooped her head slightly to listen to Torfried Lobb, the composer; Jim gazed across the table at Lita as if his adoration made every intervening obstacle transparent; Aggie Heuston, whose coldness certainly made her look distinguished, though people complained that she was dull, dispensed occasional monosyllables to the ponderous Herman Toy; and Stanley Heuston, leaning back with that faint dry smile which Pauline found irritating because it was so inscrutable, kept his eyes discreetly but steadily on Nona. Dear good Stan, always like a brother to Nona! People who knew him well said he wasn’t as sardonic as he looked.
It was a world after Pauline’s heart — a world such as she believed its Maker meant it to be. She turned to the Bishop on her right, wondering if he shared her satisfaction, and encountered a glance of understanding.
“So refreshing to be among old friends . . . This is one of the few houses left . . . Always such a pleasure to meet the dear Marchesa; I hope she has better reports of her son? Wretched business, I’m afraid. My dear Mrs. Manford, I wonder if you know how blessed you are in your children? That wise little Nona, who is going to make some man so happy one of these days — not Cosby, no? Too much difference in age? And your steady Jim and his idol . . . yes, I know it doesn’t become my cloth to speak indulgently of idolatry. But happy marriages are so rare nowadays: where else could one find such examples as there are about this table? Your Jim and his Lita, and my good friend Heuston with that saint of a wife — ” The Bishop paused, as if, even on so privileged an occasion, he was put to it to prolong the list. “Well, you’ve given them the example. . .” He stopped again, probably remembering that his hostess’s matrimonial bliss was built on the ruins of her first husband’s. But in divorcing she had invoked a cause which even the Church recognizes; and the Bishop proceeded serenely: “Her children shall rise up and call her blessed — yes, dear friend, you must let me say it.”
The words were balm to Pauline. Every syllable carried conviction: all was right with her world and the Bishop’s! Why did she ever need any other spiritual guidance than that of her own creed? She felt a twinge of regret at having so involved herself with the Mahatma. Yet what did Episcopal Bishops know of “holy ecstasy”? And could any number of Church services have reduced her hips? After all, there was room for all the creeds in her easy rosy world. And the thought led her straight to her other preoccupation: the reception for the Cardinal. She resolved to secure the Bishop’s approval at once. After that, of course the Chief Rabbi would have to come. And what a lesson in tolerance and good-will to the discordant world she was trying to reform!
Nona, half-way down the table, viewed its guests from another angle. She had come back depressed rather than fortified from her flying visit to her father. There were days when Manford liked to be “surprised” at the office; when he and his daughter had their little jokes together over these clandestine visits. But this one had not come off in that spirit. She had found Manford tired and slightly irritable; Nona, before he had time to tell her of her mother’s visit, caught a lingering whiff of Pauline’s cool hygienic scent, and wondered nervously what could have happened to make Mrs. Manford break through her tightly packed engagements, and dash down to her husband’s office. It was of course to that emergency that she had sacrificed poor Exhibit A— little guessing his relief at the postponement. But what could have obliged her to see Manford so suddenly, when they were to meet at dinner that evening?
The girl had asked no questions: she knew that Manford, true to his profession, preferred putting them. And her chief object, of course, had been to get him to help her about Arthur Wyant. That, she perceived, at first added to his irritation: was he Wyant’s keeper, he wanted to know? But he broke off before the next question: “Why the devil can’t his own son look after him?” She had seen that question on his very lips; but they shut down on it, and he rose from his chair with a shrug. “Poor devil — if you think I can be of any use? All right, then — I’ll drop in on him tomorrow.” He and Wyant, ever since the divorce, had met whenever Jim’s fate was to be discussed; Wyant felt a sort of humiliated gratitude for Manford’s generosity to his son. “Not the money, you know, Nona — damn the money! But taking such an interest in him; helping him to find himself: appreciating him, hang it! He understands Jim a hundred times better than your mother ever did. . .” On this basis the two men came together now and then in a spirit of tolerant understanding. . .
Nona recalled her father’s face as it had been when she left him: worried, fagged, yet with that twinkle of gaiety his eyes always had when he looked at her. Now, smoothed out, smiling, slightly replete, it was hard as stone. “Like his own death-mask,” the girl thought; “as if he’d done with everything, once for all. — And the way those two women bore him! Mummy put Gladys Toy next to him as a reward — for what?” She smiled at her mother’s simplicity in imagining that he was having what Pauline called a “harmless flirtation” with Mrs. Herman Toy. That lady’s obvious charms were no more to him, Nona suspected, than those of the florid Bathsheba in the tapestry behind his chair. But Pauline had evidently had some special reason — over and above her usual diffused benevolence — for wanting to put Manford in a good humour. “The Mahatma, probably.” Nona knew how her mother hated a fuss: how vulgar and unchristian she always thought it. And it would certainly be inconvenient to give up the rest-cure at Dawnside she had planned for March, when Manford was to go off tarpon-fishing.
Nona’s glance, in the intervals of talk with her neighbours, travelled farther, lit on Jim’s good-humoured wistful face — Jim was always wistful at his mother’s banquets — and flitted on to Aggie Heuston’s precise little mask, where everything was narrow and perpendicular, like the head of a saint squeezed into a cathedral niche. But the girl’s eyes did not linger, for as they rested on Aggie they abruptly met the latter’s gaze. Aggie had been furtively scrutinizing her, and the discovery gave Nona a faint shock. In another instant Mrs. Heuston turned to Parker Greg, the interesting young social reformer whom Pauline had thoughtfully placed next to her, with the optimistic idea that all persons interested in improving the world must therefore be in the fullest sympathy. Nona, knowing Parker Greg’s views, smiled at that too. Aggie, she was sure, would feel much safer with her other neighbour, Mr. Herman Toy, who thought, on all subjects, just what all his fellow capitalists did.
Nona caught Stan Heuston’s smile, and knew he had read her thought; but from him too she turned. The last thing she wanted was that he should guess her real opinion of his wife. Something deep down and