CHAPTER XVIII. AGATHA was giving a dinner party. Brighton and Mentone had filled up the autumn and winter following my visit to Maurice, and now we had come to Woodbury for the haymaking season. We are all in the drawingroom just before dinner. Agatha in black velvet is sitting next to Lady Marion Rattleton who, in a loud, masculine voice, is giving her the exact details of a famous "run" last season. I hear confused scraps of"gave him his head," "made for the quarry," "short cut through Briar Wood," and then "in at the death." I know it is all Greek to Agatha, but she is to all appearance absorbed in the recital of the fox's dilemmas. Old Lord Polterton is grinning at her with his new set of false teeth, and trying vainly to get in a compliment edgeways. I am seated at a side-table turning over the leaves of an album, in the endeavour to amuse a very shy and furiously-blushing younger son. Three young ladies seated on a settee are looking appealingly at a masculine group herded at the further end of the room. I can see the new Vicar looking at the transparency of St. Cecilia, which had been such a favourite of Mr. Vernon's. I turn away my head. For a moment I feel angry with the transparent taper fingers which attract the admiration of the new-comer. I hear him saying something to Colonel Frazer about cutting down the elms. 66 They intercept the view-and my study is so dark," he says, and Colonel Frazer quite approves. "Too much timber on a small place is a mistake," he says. "A garden won't thrive where there are many trees-they suck all the nourishment out of the ground. That's my opinion." How often had he not made the same remark to Mr. Vernon! I could hear the smiling reply: "I love my elms better than my cabbages." I was glad when Colonel Frazer plunged into new draining tiles, and left the Vicarage garden in peace. Then came dinner. I found myself paired with the blushing, younger son afore-named. Poor lad! how I pitied him! Indeed, I have always pitied the unfortunate young men who were compelled to "take me in," so much, that a dinner party has always been a trial to me. This was unfortunate, for Agatha was very fond of giving "little dinners." Nothing could be more perfect than the cooking and the table arrangements. The soft light of wax candles fell purely on the glittering silver and the delicately-painted china. In the centre of the table a fountain of sweet waters rippled harmoniously. Choice flowers bloomed in the shells upheld by water nymphs that peered from beneath the silvery shower. Deep-coloured Bohemian glass relieved the spotless whiteness of the damask. Beds of flowers in flat, crystal dishes were grouped in artistic forms. By each plate stood a slender vase containing a choice exotic. The glass was very curious. It had been procured for Agatha with great trouble and expense. The pure crystal was delicately chased with a floral pattern in ground glass, inlaid with fine double lines of dead and burnished gold. When the glass first arrived Agatha was in despair; the delicate workmanship was not sufficiently visible. The white tablecloth failed to show up its hidden beauties. She had at length mastered the difficulty by introducing slips of bright-coloured Moorish stuff, with heavy golded fringe, which formed a border to the edge of the table. I don't think all her guests approved of the innovation. "I like to see the white tablecloth," old Colonel Frazer muttered. "I don't fancy eating my food off a coloured rag. It's just a woman's fancy." It was fanciful perhaps, but I could never argue or reason about these things. I suppose I am not artistic, for if a thing is wrong I never know how to set it right. Yet I know directly if my eye is pleased or dissatisfied; and the exquisite blending of tints at Agatha's table certainly did please me very much. A pleasant sense of harmony crept over me. But The rich colouring appealed to my eye as sweetly as the waves of musical sound would fall on my ear. We have yet to learn the affinity which exists between the twin harmonies of colour and of sound. I must go back to the dinner party. Agatha sits blandly dispensing hospitality from the top of her table. Old Lord Polterton, who is sitting on her left hand, mumbles senile compliments with his toothless old gums, while Colonel Frazer on the other side devours his food with the rapacity of a hungry wolf. What an animal repast it was! The viands were the only things worth caring about! There was none of the "feast of reason and the flow of soul" that made Maurice's dinnertable a place of mental as well as of physical refreshment. I could hear scraps of London talk, reminiscences of the past glories of the season, from my opposite neighbours. Local politics are wafted from the other end of the table. Colonel Frazer is scowling at the sweets, and evidently thinking it is time for the women to go. He is beginning again about the Vicarage elms. "Cut them down, |