eople wondered how he had secured
the cooperation of Mrs. Dan, but then Mrs. Dan always did go in for a
new toy. To her was inevitably attributed whatever success the dinner
achieved. And it was no small measure. Yet there was nothing startling
about the affair. Monty had decided to begin conservatively. He did the
conventional thing, but he did it well. He added a touch or two of
luxury, the faintest aroma of splendor. Pettingill had designed the
curiously wayward table, with its comfortable atmosphere of
companionship, and arranged its decoration of great lavender orchids
and lacy butterfly festoons of white ones touched with yellow. He had
wanted to use dahlias in their many rich shades from pale yellow to
orange and deep red, but Monty held out for orchids. It was the artist,
too, who had found in a rare and happy moment the massive gold
candelabra--ancient things of a more luxurious age--and their
opalescent shades. Against his advice the service, too, was of
gold,--"rank vulgarity," he called it, with its rich meaningless
ornamentation. But here Monty was obdurate. He insisted that he liked
the color and that porcelain had no character. Mrs. Dan only prevented
a quarrel by suggesting that several courses should be served upon
Sevres.

Pettingill's scheme for lighting the room was particularly happy. For
the benefit of his walls and the four lovely Monets which Monty had
purchased at his instigation, he had designed a ceiling screen of heavy
rich glass in tones of white that grew into yellow and dull green. It
served to conceal the lights in the daytime, and at night the glare of
electricity was immensely softened and made harmonious by passing
through it. It gave a note of quiet to the picture, which caused even
these men and women, who had been here and there and seen many things,
to draw in their breath sharply. Altogether the effect manifestly made
an impression.

Such an environment had its influence upon the company. It went far
toward making the dinner a success. From far in the distance came the
softened strains of Hungarian music, and never had the little band
played the "Valse Amoureuse" and the "Valse Bleue" with the spirit it
put into them that night. Yet the soft clamor in the dining-room
insistently ignored the emotion of the music. Monty, bored as he was
between the two most important dowagers at the feast, wondered dimly
what invisible part it played in making things go. He had a vagrant
fancy th