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"He didn't even wire me he just happened to find the trap at the station. Perhaps it's not over with Bertha after all," Mrs. Trenor musingly concluded; and went away to arrange her dinner-cards accordingly. Perhaps it was not, Lily reflected; but it should be soon, unless she had lost her cunning. If Selden had come at Mrs. Dorset's call, it was at her own that he would stay.
Half of the cards bore a caricature of Polly in the shape of a parrot, with the inscription 'Polly want a cracker? The rest were adorned with pretty sketches of her in her camping-dress, a kettle in one hand, and underneath, 'Polly, put the kettle on, We'll all have tea. This was the bill of fare arranged by Bell and Geoffrey, and written on the reverse side of the dinner-cards
The two went to work at once, bringing order out of the confusion that reigned in the tiny kitchen. In the afternoon the would-be waitress sat down with a box of water-colors to paint dinner-cards, and as her skilful brush brought into being dainty landscapes, lovely flowers, and little brown birds, she pondered the strangeness of her lot.
She put her head aside, and laughed with charming naivete. "I can't sit idle at home whilst you are working with such zeal. And I really feel what you say: women have a clear duty. How excited Mrs. Wade must be!" "Have you written all the dinner-cards?" "They were all sent before twelve." "Good! Hammond will be here in half an hour to talk over the address with me.
Catch these corks and put them away. They're messing up my dinner-cards." Lila's shoulders quivered as if pricked by a spur even while she mechanically caught the bits of black and fumbled them in her fingers. "She meant that my brows are too thin and my lashes too light. I would thank her to keep her criticism until it is called for."
They both smiled, and Paul, seeing his mother's softened face, stole his hand in hers and began: "Mother, I took a prize in composition " "Did you? You must tell me about it to-morrow. No, I really must rush off now and dress I haven't even placed the dinner-cards." She freed her hand, and as she turned to go Paul heard Mr. Moffatt say: "Can't you ever give him a minute's time, Undine?"
How dreary and trivial these people were! Lily reviewed them with a scornful impatience: Carry Fisher, with her shoulders, her eyes, her divorces, her general air of embodying a "spicy paragraph"; young Silverton, who had meant to live on proof-reading and write an epic, and who now lived on his friends and had become critical of truffles; Alice Wetherall, an animated visiting-list, whose most fervid convictions turned on the wording of invitations and the engraving of dinner-cards; Wetherall, with his perpetual nervous nod of acquiescence, his air of agreeing with people before he knew what they were saying; Jack Stepney, with his confident smile and anxious eyes, half way between the sheriff and an heiress; Gwen Van Osburgh, with all the guileless confidence of a young girl who has always been told that there is no one richer than her father.
Miss Pragg, the secretary, had been called away, and there would be notes and dinner-cards to write, lost addresses to hunt up, and other social drudgery to perform. It was understood that Miss Bart should fill the gap in such emergencies, and she usually recognized the obligation without a murmur.
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