not exchanged a
dozen remarks before these clever people felt that they were congenial
spirits. It was in the smoking-room that Henderson and Mavick fell into
an interesting conversation, which resulted in an invitation for Mavick
to drop in at Henderson's office in the morning. The dinner had not been
a brilliant one. Henderson found it not easy to select topics equally
interesting to Mrs. Delancy and Mrs. Blunt, and finally fell into
geographical information to the latter about Mexico and Honduras. For
Edith, the sole relief of the evening was an exchange of sympathy with
Father Damon, and she was too much preoccupied to enjoy that. As for
Carmen, placed between Jack and Mr. Mavick, and conscious that the eyes
of Mrs. Blunt were on her, she was taking a subdued role, which Jack
found much less attractive than her common mood. But this was not her
only self-sacrifice of the evening. She went without her usual
cigarette.

To Edith the dinner was a revelation of new difficulties in the life she
proposed for herself, though they were rather felt than distinctly
reasoned about. The social atmosphere was distasteful; its elements were
out of harmony with her ideals. Not that this society was new to her,
but that she saw it in a new light. Before her marriage all these things
had been indifferent to this high-spirited girl. They were merely
incidents of the social state into which she was born, and she pursued
her way among them, having a tolerably clear conception of what her own
life should be, with little recognition of their tendencies. Were only
her own life concerned, they would still be indifferent to her. But
something had happened. That which is counted the best thing in life had
come to her, that best thing which is the touchstone of character as it
is of all conditions, and which so often introduces inextricable
complications. She had fallen in love with Jack Delancy and married him.

The first effect of this was to awake and enlarge what philosophers would
call her enthusiasm of humanity. The second effect was to show her--and
this was what this little dinner emphasized--that she had put limitations
upon herself and taken on unthought-of responsibilities. To put this
sort of life one side, or make it secondary to her own idea of a useful
and happy life, would have been easy but for one thing--she loved Jack.
This philosophic reasoning about it does her injustice. It did not occur
to her that she could go her way