There was a painful pause. Hal's gaze travelled on, and came to a grey-haired lady in a black dinner-gown, with a rope of pearls about her neck. “Mrs. Curtis! Surely you will advise him!” The grey-haired lady started—was there no limit to his impudence? She had witnessed the torturing of Jessie. But Jessie was his fiancée; he had no such claim upon Mrs. Curtis. She answered, with iciness in her tone: “I could not undertake to dictate to my host in such a matter.”
“Mrs. Curtis! You have founded a charity for the helping of stray cats and dogs!” These words rose to Hal's lips; but he did not say them. His eyes moved on. Who else might help to bully a Harrigan?
Next to Mrs. Curtis sat Reggie Porter, with a rose in the button-hole of his dinner-jacket. Hal knew the r?le in which Reggie was there—a kind of male chaperon, an assistant host, an admirer to the wealthy, a solace to the bored. Poor Reggie lived other people's lives, his soul perpetually a-quiver with other people's excitements, with gossip, preparations for tea-parties, praise of tea-parties past. And always the soul was pushing; calculating, measuring opportunities, making up in tact and elegance for distressing lack of money. Hal got one swift glimpse of the face; the sharp little black moustaches seemed standing up with excitement, and in a flash of horrible intuition Hal read the situation—Reggie was expecting to be questioned, and had got ready an answer that would increase his social capital in the Harrigan family bank!
Across the aisle sat Genevieve Halsey: tall, erect, built on the scale of a statue. You thought of the ox-eyed Juno, and imagined stately emotions; but when you came to know Genevieve, you discovered that her mind was slow, and entirely occupied with herself. Next to her was Bob Creston, smooth-shaven, rosy-cheeked, exuding well-being—what is called a “good fellow,” with a wholesome ambition to win cups for his athletic club, and to keep up the score of his rifle-team of the state militia. Jolly Bob might have spoken, out of his good heart; but he was in love with a cousin of Percy's, Betty Gunnison, who sat across the table from him—and Hal saw her black eyes shining, her little fists clenched tightly, her lips pressed white. Hal understood Betty—she was one of the Harrigans, working at the Harrigan family task of making the children of a pack-pedlar into leaders in the “younger set!”
Next sat “Vivie” Cass, whose talk was of horses and dogs and such ungirlish matters; Hal had discussed social questions in her presence, and heard her view expressed in one flashing sentence—“If a man eats with his knife, I consider him my personal enemy!” Over her shoulder peered the face of a man with pale eyes and............