; then she would send round a few quite formal invitations, couched
in terms which were out of keeping with the interval between the date of
the invitation and the date of the dinner, with the result that, first
of all, she utterly put out the hired chef; that sometimes there was a
bottle of champagne short; and that her guests invariably appeared in
every possible gradation of evening-dress. Or, else, she thought of
giving a big dinner, received a number of refusals, did not know whom to
invite instead, asked people informally, or even by word of mouth, and
found herself entertaining half-a-dozen guests with a super-abundance of
dishes and wine, while once again the men were dressed, one in a
swallow-tail coat and white tie, the other in a morning-coat; the
ladies, one in a low-necked bodice, the other in a blouse: a disparity
that was constantly giving them fresh shocks of dismay.

It was always a medley; and, even as she lacked the tact to give a
successful dinner, she was doomed to lack the tact to achieve the
distinction for which she craved. Her very husband thwarted her: a
simple man, a little boorish in his ways, who trudged daily to his
office and back, conscientious about his work like a schoolboy finishing
his exercises and devoid of any particular ability or political
adroitness. He approved of what Adolphine did, but could not understand
that craving, that vital need of hers for distinction. It was true that
he had caught from his wife that exuberant satisfaction with _his_ wife,
_his_ house, _his_ children, _his_ furniture and _his_ friends. He too
knew how to boast of _his_ coat, _his_ office, even _his_ minister,
_his_ secretary-general. But Adolphine might have stood behind him with
a whip and would still have urged him to the summits of earthly and
Haguish greatness. He was ponderous, fog-brained, a man who worked by
rote, who went his way like a draught-ox, year in, year out, with the
same heavy tread of a Dutch steer under heavy Dutch skies: he bore
within him the natural instinct to be an inferior, an underling, to
remain in the background and there to go on working in an accurate,
small-souled, worthy fashion, in the little groove in which he had first
started.

They had three boys and three girls and they were not bad parents. They,
both of them, loved their children and thought of their children's
welfare. But they knew as little of a system of education as of a system
of dinner-giving; and such