ready to leave, he goes out on the front steps and calls,
"Mr. Jones' car!" The Jones' chauffeur answers, "Here," the butler says to
either Mr. or Mrs. Jones, "Your car is at the door!" and they go out.

The bridge people leave as they finish their games; sometimes a table at a
time or most likely two together. (Husbands and wives are never, if it
can be avoided, put at the same table.) Young people in saying good night
say, "Good night, it has been too wonderful!" or "Good night, and thank
you _so_ much." And the hostess smiles and says, "So glad you could come!"
or just "Good night!"

=THE LITTLE DINNER=

The little dinner is thought by most people to be the very pleasantest
social function there is. It is always informal, of course, and intimate
conversation is possible, since strangers are seldom, or at least very
carefully, included. For younger people, or others who do not find great
satisfaction in conversation, the dinner of eight and two tables of bridge
afterwards has no rival in popularity. The formal dinner is liked by most
people now and then (and for those who don't especially like it, it is at
least salutary as a spine stiffening exercise), but for night after night,
season after season, the little dinner is to social activity what the
roast course is to the meal.

The service of a "little" dinner is the same as that of a big one. As has
been said, proper service in properly run houses is never relaxed, whether
dinner is for eighteen or for two alone. The table appointments are
equally fine and beautiful, though possibly not quite so rare. Really
priceless old glass and china can't be replaced because duplicates do not
exist and to use it three times a day would be to court destruction;
replicas, however, are scarcely less beautiful and can be replaced if
chipped. The silver is identical; the food is equally well prepared,
though a course or two is eliminated; the service is precisely the same.
The clothes that fashionable people wear every evening they are home
alone, are, if not the same, at least as beautiful of their kind. Young
Gilding's lounge suit is quite as "handsome" as his dinner clothes, and he
tubs and shaves and changes his linen when he puts it on. His wife wears a
tea gown, which is classified as a neglige rather in irony, since it is
apt to be more elaborate and gorgeous (to say nothing of dignified) than
half of the garments that masquerade these days as evening dresses! They
wear