become conspicuous. Everything ought to go off smoothly, she said, as Vincent dressed in conventional evening clothes entered the drawing-room just before the guests began to arrive.
Everything did go off smoothly, she congratulated herself later, when finally she rose and led the way into the dining-room. From her switch-board at the foot of the table she had caught a perfect medley of war-discussions, of course, of one kind and another, over her various wires—but not once had there occurred one of those dreadful dead silences, which she had so feared might be broken by a direct reference to Vincent, and his part in the war. He appeared to have no more connection with the world hostilities than the successful young broker he was two years ago.
It was after dinner, five or ten minutes after the men had come into the drawing-room, when Mrs. Hollister glanced about to make sure that the interchange of partners had been happy, that she discovered with consternation that Vincent was seated at the far end of the room, in the window-seat beyond the piano, with the only guest of the evening to whom she hadn't given personal instruction. There hadn't been a chance to give it. Mrs. Hollister hadn't known that she was coming till six o'clock that night. Alice Farnum
