The Christmas Eve dinner party was rather a large one. Hermione and her husband could not come, as they were obliged to dine with relations of the Gaskell-Walkers. But the Twiss's were there, and Mr. and Mrs. Crichell, and Paul and the Wicks, and, to Griselda's joy, the great Bruce Collier honoured them with his presence. She knew that this condescension was due to his having once met her coming out of the house when he was on his way to see Paul.

Walbridge had, as usual, helped by spending all his available money on things of a showy and convivial nature. The quarterly gas bill was still unpaid, and he was having serious trouble with his tailor, but he had sent in a case of champagne, and a box of the best cigars money could buy, and all sorts of impressive, though unnecessary dainties, such as caviare, pÂtÉ de foie, brandied cherries, oysters and so on, besides a fifteen-pound turkey, which quite put out of joint, as Grisel expressed it, "the pope's nose of the poor little eleven-pounder mother had bought for the occasion."

Ferdie had been very fussy and tiresome ever since he came back from Torquay, and at the last minute, distrustful of the new cook's powers, he had insisted on getting a woman in for the Christmas Eve dinner. The permanent cook wept all day, and went through the usual procedure of reproaches and threats, but she finally quieted down, by the help of a bottle of port, and the dinner really was excellent.

At the last minute the table had had to be redecorated, because Ferdie had been seized with a desire to have orchids. Mrs. Walbridge sat patiently by and watched him remove her time-honoured design of holly and mistletoe and smilax, and then arrange the lovely purple and mauve things that she now saw for the first time in her life without a shop front between her and them. She dared not ask the price; she dared not offer to help him, for he was extraordinarily irritable, and in spite of his look of renewed health and youth, moved to violent invective by the slightest word or suggestion. She watched him now as he darted from side to side of the table trying the effect of the different clear-glass vases, full of the expensive flowers that his wife privately thought so much less lovely than roses or sweet peas.

He was looking very handsome, and had certainly renewed his youth in a way that made her feel, as she raised her eyes to the glass that always hung opposite his place at table, that she looked older and more dowdy than ever. And yet there was something in his face that displeased her, and seemed to give her an odd kind of warning. After a while she rose and went quietly to the door.

"Where are you going?" he asked sharply.

"I'm going up to write a little."

"Oh, rubbish! Go down to the kitchen and make sure that everything's all right. That's far more important."

"I've been down to the kitchen," she answered gently, with something in her eyes that disconcerted him. "Everything is all right, and as you are going to arrange the seats I'm going to write for a while."

She went upstairs and closed the door, and sat down before her work-table, where her lamp always stood nowadays filled and trimmed, with a box of matches by its side.

Old Mrs. Wick, rather imposing in grey, with some fine lace, and a cap, and a handsome old brooch of Irish paste and black enamel, necessarily sat on Ferdie Walbridge's right at dinner. Mrs. Crichell, very handsome in jade green velvet, sat on his left, as she had sat, Oliver remembered, from his place on Mrs. Walbridge's left, that night in the early autumn, when he had first dined at the house.

Oliver was very proud of his old mother, and with good reason, for her plain, strong face was by far the most arresting, apart from the mere fact of superficial beauty, at the table. His little sister too, whose soft red hair foamed over her head like scarlet soap-suds, bore the proximity of three very good-looking young women remarkably well. She was plainly by far the most intelligent of the four, and once or twice when the celebrated Mr. Collier laid down the law with even more than his usual cocksureness, little Jenny dashed in, as her delighted brother thought, and wiped the floor with him. He was a pretentious, posing man, Mr. Collier, disposing of such writers as Thomas Hardy and Meredith with a few words of amused contempt.

"Hardy has talent," he said, screwing his glass in his eye, and studying Griselda's charming face with relish. "Of course, he writes well, but he's very old-fashioned, and far too long-winded. There's not one of his books that would not be better for a little judicious paring down."

"And who," put in Jenny Wick's high, clear voice, "whom do you suggest as a parer?"

Collier glared at her, and Paul who, for some reason, had hardly taken his eyes off his red-headed vis-À-vis, gave a sudden laugh, although he had had no intention of doing so.

"I like your sister," Maud Twiss said pleasantly, turning to Oliver, and speaking in an undertone. "She's a dear little thing."

"Isn't she," he answered, "very like me, don't you think?"

And Maud, who knew him less well than the other members of the family, was a little disconcerted, and blushed. She looked very handsome when she blushed, and Crichell leant across the table to her, waving those white hands of his in the way that was so singularly distasteful to Wick. Once more the young man was reminded of things sprouting in dark places, and then his quick imagination improved on this crude vision, and he seemed to catch a glimpse of blind sea-worms writhing in some sunless cavern.

"When are you going to sit to me, Mrs. Twiss?" the painter asked. But Twiss, who sat the other side of Jenny, leant over and answered for his wife.

"Never, Mr. Crichell. She's no time for portraits."

Paul, who disliked his younger brother-in-law, sneered at this, and Maud saw him.

"I saw you yesterday, Paul," she said, without lowering her voice. "You didn't see me, did you?"

He turned to her with a little snarl. "Yesterday? No, I didn't."

"I thought not. I was lunching at the Piccadilly Grill with Elynor Twiss."

Paul didn't answer, but he turned to Mrs. Wick and made some unimportant remark to her. The old lady was amused by the situation, and she did not like Paul, whereas Maud struck her as a kind, pretty young woman who ought to be aided and abetted in her attack on a disagreeable, pettish-minded brother.

"No," she returned, in her sonorous voice, "I never did. Do you often go to the Piccadilly Grill, Mr. Walbridge? I was there with Oliver the other day."

Paul was furious. He didn't mind bear baiting, but he did object to being the bear, and Oliver, who knew his mother and her wicked ways, and who had also caught a pained look in Mrs. Walbridge's eyes, leaned across Maud and made a sign to the old lady. The sign consisted of slipping the forefinger of his right hand down into his collar and giving it a jerk as if he felt a little breathless. Mrs. Wick laughed. She loved teasing, but this was an old signal used only when Oliver felt that she really had gone far enough. So she nodded good-humouredly at her son and let the subject of the Piccadilly Grill drop.

After that the dinner went on pleasantly enough, and Mrs. Walbridge saw with pleasure that Ferdie really seemed to be enjoying himself. Mr. Walbridge, like everybody else, had the qualities of his defects, and he was a very good host.

Mrs. Wick was old and plain, and did not interest him in the least, but she was his guest, and he was charming to her—charming, that is, as far as a man may be said to be charming to a woman who is not at all charmed by him. Pretty Mrs. Crichell, on his left, talked a good deal to Moreton Twiss, who admired and took pleasure in her beauty, as every man ought always to admire and take pleasure in the beauty of any pretty woman. To do them justice, most of them do.

Grisel, of all the people at the table, seemed the least amused, Wick thought. Mr. Collier plainly admired her, but she seemed to derive less satisfaction from this circumstance than might have been expected, and he knew that she had never liked Crichell, who sat on her right. When her brilliant little face was in repose, it had a new look of fatigue and boredom. Wick watched her constantly throughout dinner, for he was hampered by no wish to conceal his admiration, and he came to the conclusion that she was not only preoccupied, but worried about something. He wondered if Walbridge knew the cause of this worry, for the girl turned more than once towards her father, and looked at him in a way that puzzled her observer.

They went upstairs for coffee, the girls' sitting-room being not only larger and pleasanter than the drawing-room, but the piano also being there, and when the men had come in and Oliver made a bee-line for Grisel, he found that she looked even more nervous and tired than he had thought.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Tired. Besides it's very warm in here."

"Come and sit by the window."

She obeyed him listlessly, and they sat down in the window seat that looked down over the little path leading round the house to the kitchen door.

"I do wish," the girl burst out suddenly, "that mother wouldn't have the Crichells here."

He stared at her. "But I thought you liked her. Why do you call her by her Christian name if you don't?"

"I don't say I don't like her. I saw you looking at his hands at dinner. Aren't they beastly?"

"Horrid. Has he done anything—anything you don't like?"

She shook her head. "Oh, no. But I—I wish they hadn't come."

As she spoke Wick's sister began to play, something very modern, of which he could make neither head nor tail. But she played brilliantly, and with what seemed almost unequalled facility, although he knew what hours of daily hard work went to its perfection.

Grisel leant back in her corner, and shut her eyes for a minute. She was really pale, and looked seriously troubled and puzzled. He turned and watched the listening group round the fire. Mrs. Crichell lay back in a low chair, her beautiful arms hanging loose over its sides. She was really lovely, the young man thought—as lovely, that is, as a woman of forty could possibly be, and Mr. Collier evidently agreed with him, for his eyes were fixed on her. Crichell had taken up a magazine, folded back the last page, and was rapidly sketching Maud Twiss, who sat looking away from him and did not see what he was doing. Twiss had gone to the telephone and Paul stood near the piano, watching Jenny, as her red head bobbed funnily over the keys as she played.

Mrs. Walbridge had left the room, and Walbridge stood leaning against the door in a pose often drawn by du Maurier in the eighties.

"I say," Wick whispered to Grisel, hoping to make her laugh, "your father is most awfully good-looking. Perfectly splendid to-night, isn't he?"

She gave a little pettish start. "Oh, do be quiet," she snapped. "If you knew how sick and tired I was of having father's good looks drummed into me——"

She rose and marched over to the chair her mother had left, and sat down, staring at her father, as if she disliked him intensely.

Wick sat still, feeling very much injured, for, after all, most girls would like to hear their father praised—at least, most pretty girls. Of course, if she had been plain, he reflected gravely, one could understand her being so shirty.

As Jenny stopped playing, Mrs. Walbridge came back into the room, and approached Mrs. Crichell.

"I'm so sorry," she said kindly, "but someone has just telephoned to your husband from his mother's house and asked if he's not going on there."

Mrs. Crichell unfurled her fan, which was of black feathers like some big wing. "Dear me, how tiresome!" she said. "He's having such a good time, sketching Maud, and she doesn't even see him. Walter," she called.

Crichell turned. "Yes?"

She gave him the message, and he rose without any comment. "You'll let me take this magazine with me, Mrs. Walbridge?" he asked.

Maud turned and stared at him. She was a little annoyed, but plainly thought the matter not worth making a fuss about, and Mrs. Crichell rose and took up her gloves, and gave herself a little shake more than ever like a sleek pigeon that has been sitting in the sun.

"Oh, need you go too?" Mrs. Walbridge asked, hospitably.

She hesitated. "No—I don't know—Walter, what d'you think?"

"I think," he said coldly, "you might as well stay where you are. My mother is not well," he explained to his hostess, "and she's quite alone."

Ferdie Walbridge came forward. "Have a whisky and soda before you go, old man," he said warmly. "I'll bring Mrs. Crichell home in a taxi. We want her to sing for us; we couldn't think of letting her go yet."

Crichell stood with his back towards Oliver Wick, and he had clasped his hands behind him in a way he had. Wick did not catch what he said in reply to this remark, but noticed his hands move, and again thought of the writhing of the unpleasant sea-worms.

When her husband had gone, Mrs. Crichell sang, accompanying herself; or rather she cooed little Spanish and Mexican ballads, the words of which no one present could understand, although their meaning was made fairly clear by the extreme eloquence of her face and gestures.

"That's very clever," old Mrs. Wick commented to Moreton Twiss who sat near her.

"It's very nearly wonderful," the old woman insisted gently.

Twiss looked at her, his good-looking, blue-chinned face rather critical. "Oh, well, if you admire it," he said, "I've nothing more to say. Personally I don't. In fact," he added, confidentially, leaning forward, "I can't bear the woman, so probably I'm unfair to her singing."

Later in the evening Jenny Wick accompanied Paul, as he sang some old ballads full of a kind of academic gruesomeness. He had, singularly, a delightfully warm baritone voice, and sang well. His rendering of "Lord Edward My Son" was extremely fine, and little Jenny Wick was delighted, and they arranged to meet during the holidays so that she might show him a lot of queer Basque songs that her father had collected years ago.

Mrs. Wick and Mrs. Walbridge had a long talk before the evening was over, and though they were intensely reserved women in different ways, the observant Oliver saw with delight that their attitude showed promise of a real friendship.

When he said good-night to Mrs. Walbridge, he invited her to kiss him, but this she refused to do, patting his cheek instead.

It was late, and the Twisses and Mr. Collier had gone long since. Mrs. Wick and her daughter and son left at the same time that Mrs. Crichell and Mr. Walbridge started out on their hunt for a taxi, for none had been on the rank when they telephoned.

The Crichells lived in Hamilton Terrace, so the walk would not be very long, and when finally at the corner a belated taxi did draw up and showed signs of being willing to accept a fare, Mrs. Crichell refused to take it.

"I really live only just round the corner," she said kindly to the old woman, "and it's a long way to Baker Street. Do take it, Mrs. Wick."

So the three Wicks said "Good-night," and got into the taxi, and the other two walked on.

"Well, mother," the young man asked, putting an arm round each of his companions as he sat bodkin between them, "did you enjoy your evening?"

"I did, son," she returned. "What a queer world it is! To think that all of us will be just a handful of churchyard mould, somewhere, in a few years' time."

Jenny burst out laughing. "And may I ask which of the guests to-night struck you as being particularly mouldy?"

But Mrs. Wick was serious. "Don't try to be funny, Jenny," she answered gravely. "It really struck me that it is strange, when you come to think of it, how important we all feel, and what rubbish we all are." After a minute she added, with apparent irrelevance, "That Violet Walbridge of yours is a fine, brave little soul, Olly. I like her."

"I knew you would. And what," the young man added, "did you think of your future daughter-in-law?"

"She's very pretty, but—you'll be annoyed with me for saying so—but I should like her better if she were more like her mother."

The young man gave her a little squeeze. "Her mother's twice the woman she is, of course. But then, on the other hand," he added, "she's young, and has plenty of time to improve."

The cab had stopped at Baker Street Station, and as he jumped out and turned to help the old lady, he added, "You wouldn't like me to marry Mrs. Walbridge, even if she was free, would you? She really is a little too old for me!"