Part 19 (1/2)

_Morrison._ You know what I am after.

_Wetherbee._ Yes, that dinner.

Just a round dozen: Ferguson and Binner For the fine arts; Bowyer the novelist; Dr. Le Martin; the psychologist Fletcher; the English actor Philipson; The two newspaper Witkins, Bob and John; A nice Bostonian, Bane the archaeologer, And a queer Russian amateur astrologer; And Father Gray, the jolly ritualist priest, And last your humble servant, but not least.

The food was not so filthy, and the wine Was not so poison. We made out to dine From eight till one A.M. One could endure The dinner. But, oh say! _The talk was poor!_ Your natives down at Clamhurst--

_Morrison._ Look ye here!

What date does Thanksgiving come on this year?

_Wetherbee._ Why, I suppose--although I don't remember Certainly--the usual 28th November.

_Morrison._ Novem-- You should have waited to get sober!

It comes on the 11th of October!

And that's to-morrow; and if you happen down Later, you'd better look for us in town.

XVI

TABLE TALK

They were talking after dinner in that cozy moment when the conversation has ripened, just before the coffee, into mocking guesses and laughing suggestions. The thing they were talking of was something that would have held them apart if less happily timed and placed, but then and there it drew these together in what most of them felt a charming and flattering intimacy. Not all of them took part in the talk, and of those who did, none perhaps a.s.sumed to talk with authority or finality. At first they spoke of the subject as _it_, forbearing to name it, as if the name of it would convey an unpleasant shock, out of temper with the general feeling.

”I don't suppose,” the host said, ”that it's really so much commoner than it used to be. But the publicity is more invasive and explosive.

That's perhaps because it has got higher up in the world and has spread more among the first circles. The time was when you seldom heard of it there, and now it is scarcely a scandal. I remember that when I went abroad, twenty or thirty years ago, and the English brought me to book about it, I could put them down by saying that I didn't know a single divorced person.”

”And of course,” a bachelor guest ventured, ”a person of that sort _must_ be single.”

At first the others did not take the joke; then they laughed, but the women not so much as the men.

”And you couldn't say that now?” the lady on the right of the host inquired.

”Why, I don't know,” he returned, thoughtfully, after a little interval. ”I don't just call one to mind.”

”Then,” the bachelor said, ”that cla.s.ses you. If you moved in our best society you would certainly know some of the many smart people whose disunions alternate with the morning murders in the daily papers.”

”Yes, the fact seems to rank me rather low; but I'm rather proud of the fact.”

The hostess seemed not quite to like this arrogant humility. She said, over the length of the table (it was not very long), ”I'm sure you know some very nice people who have not been.”

”Well, yes, I do. But are they really smart people? They're of very good family, certainly.”

”You mustn't brag,” the bachelor said.

A husband on the right of the hostess wondered if there were really more of the thing than there used to be.

”Qualitatively, yes, I should say. Quant.i.tatively, I'm not convinced,”

the host answered. ”In a good many of the States it's been made difficult.”