CHAPTER IX

The Dinner Party

Tonight, as the group of Camp Fire girls were seated at dinner, their appearance afforded a striking contrast to the ordinary simplicity of their lives within the past few years which they had spent together.

The long oval dinner table held a basket of white roses in the center. Above the roses and attached to the crystal chandelier was a white dove. On the table were white candles and two silken flags, the United States flag and the French, which lay one beside the other across the white cloth.

Seated at the head of the table and presiding over her peace dinner was Miss Patricia Lord, but a Miss Patricia whom no one of the Camp Fire girls had ever beheld before tonight.

Vanished was her usually shabby and old-fashioned attire! In its place for this occasion she wore a gown of black satin and lace of unusual elegance. Indeed, through the art of her French dressmaker even Miss Patricia’s ordinary ungainliness had been metamorphosed into a unique distinction. Never lacking dignity even in the shabbiest attire through sheer force of personality, tonight she was almost handsome as well.

Her hair had been arranged by a hair dresser, so that the soft waves over her forehead gave her a less severe expression, a slight color due to the excitement of her dinner party and her gratification over Mrs. Burton’s and the Camp Fire girls’ appearance, made her cheeks glow with something approaching the past radiance of youth.

Moreover, Miss Patricia was finding herself agreeably entertained by the guest who sat upon her right.

Mr. David Hale was probably not aware of what extent the dinner, with its suggestion of a peace table, had been hurriedly arranged in order to impress him. But if Miss Patricia had desired to make an impression, she had accomplished the result she wished to achieve.

As he talked to Miss Patricia, whom he discovered to be an extremely well informed woman as well as a decidedly original character, he was at the same time able to observe with a good deal of pleasure the group of charming girls by whom he was surrounded.

Any other hostess than Miss Patricia Lord, under similar circumstances, would have seen that Bettina Graham was placed beside her new acquaintance, who had been so kind after their unexpected meeting. But any one, who has learned to know Miss Patricia, by this time must have appreciated that her tactics were not always those of other people.

Bettina did not sit next Mr. Hale but almost directly across from him. Yvonne Fleury was placed on his other side. As Yvonne was French and the young man an American, they might be supposed to be interested in making each other’s acquaintance. So far as Bettina was concerned Miss Patricia had a definite purpose in her dinner arrangement. Mr. Hale was not to imagine that his passing acquaintance with Bettina, or his opportunity to render her a personal service, was necessarily to lead to further intimacy.

In Miss Patricia’s eyes Bettina had appeared, before a stranger, in an extremely unfortunate and undignified position. She must therefore be restored to proper dignity both by her own behavior and the attitude of her friends.

In the adventure between Sally Ashton and Lieutenant Fleury,[2] Miss Patricia had been actuated by this same motive, although she had expressed it so differently.

Tonight, in spite of her critical attitude, Miss Patricia was fairly well satisfied with Bettina Graham’s demeanor. Whatever Bettina’s impression of herself as lacking in social grace, she had been witness for many years to the charm of her mother’s manner, to her gift for knowing and saying just what the occasion demanded and must have learned of her.

In her greeting of Mr. Hale on his arrival earlier in the evening, Bettina had displayed just the proper degree of appreciation of his kindness, neither too much or too little. Immediately after she had effaced herself in order that he might devote his attention to her Camp Fire guardian and Miss Patricia.

If the young American had become interested in Bettina through their romantic encounter, Miss Patricia had decided that he could be allowed the privilege of looking at her, or even of addressing a remark to her across the table, but for the present this was sufficient.

If her own judgment counted for anything, Bettina was well worth observation on this particular occasion.

Notwithstanding her leniency in regard to Bettina’s previous costume, Bettina had answered her unspoken wish and was now wearing her prettiest evening gown. The dress was made of white chiffon with bands of silver embroidery over the shoulders and around the waist. She also wore a little fine string of pearls, a gift from her father several years before.

Bettina’s fair hair was bound closely about her head in two heavy braids; it was a characteristic of her’s that she was always at her best in evening clothes, partly because her head was so beautifully set on her long, slender neck.

She was next Ralph Marshall and on his other side was Peggy Webster. Peggy wore a rose-colored gown and with her dark hair and eyes and brilliant color formed a striking contrast to Bettina’s fairness.

How utterly different had been the circumstances of the lives of this particular group of Camp Fire girls before their association with one another! And yet in their own way each girl appeared tonight at almost equal advantage!

Vera Lagerloff was the daughter of Russian peasants who had emigrated to the United States and were at present small farmers upon a portion of Peggy Webster’s father’s large estate.

Vera was perhaps not beautiful in the opinion of most persons, but was singularly interesting, with her long Slavic eyes of a curious grayish green shade, her heavy hair, and her expression of dignity and intelligence.

Moreover, she also had been transformed into greater beauty through the art of Miss Patricia’s newly discovered French dressmaker.

Vera’s dress was of an unusual shade of green, a little like the color of her eyes, a shade few persons could have worn, but peculiarly suited to her. Following simple, almost severely plain lines, the dress was trimmed with an odd piece of old Russian embroidery, of bronze and green and blue threads.

Alice and Sally Ashton were both in white; as Alice had reddish hair and the complexion which usually accompanies it, white was always more becoming to her than anything else. But tonight Sally looked too thin and white herself to have worn so colorless a costume. One can scarcely imagine how Sally had altered in the past months; her soft rounded outlines had disappeared and she was now almost painfully thin. There were hollows under her brown eyes, which had lost their childish expression, and hollows in her cheeks, where the dimples which she had so resented had formerly been.

Mary Gilchrist wore a blue dress made as simply as possible, which emphasized the almost boyish grace of her figure. Her hair, with its bright red lights, was piled in a loose mass on top of her head, her cheeks were glowing.

In spite of the change in the conditions of their present Camp Fire life, Mary Gilchrist had not given up her outdoor existence. A portion of nearly every day she devoted to driving wounded, convalescent soldiers about in her motor car in order that they should enjoy the air and entertainment.

Yvonne Fleury wore a violet crepe as she had promised her Camp Fire guardian not to wear mourning, but did not wish to appear in any more brilliant color.

There was only one sombre note tonight at Miss Patricia’s table; a young girl, a stranger, who sat near Mrs. Burton, was in black. The dress she was wearing, although of an inexpensive material, was light in texture and not unattractive. Nevertheless, its wearer seemed to feel both shy and uncomfortable. She must have been about nineteen or twenty, older than the Camp Fire girls.

Some weeks before, having introduced the young French dressmaker, Marguerite Arnot, into her family, Miss Patricia had since insisted that she become an actual member of it. In spite of her work she was expected to appear with the family at the table and to share in so far as possible in the ordinary daily life of the other girls. Tonight vainly had she pleaded to be spared the ordeal of a fashionable dinner, only to find Miss Patricia adamant.

Mrs. Burton was placed beside a former acquaintance, whose appearance as one of the guests at Miss Patricia’s hastily arranged dinner, had caused her a moment’s surprise. No suggestion had Miss Patricia made to her, that she intended inviting Senator Georges Duval, for whom she had always expressed a decided antagonism.

But after a little consideration of the matter, Mrs. Burton understood Miss Patricia Lord’s sudden change of front.

During the months of their work in one of the devastated districts of France, Miss Patricia had at least appeared to dislike her friendship with the distinguished Frenchman. However, since their arrival in Paris and now at Versailles, there might be a number of ways in which a French senator might be of service to the Camp Fire girls. Bettina’s recent adventure particularly emphasized the fact that his friendship might prove useful. And Miss Patricia was not in the least averse to using persons for the sake of her friends, provided that she did them no harm.

Her invitation tonight to Senator Duval to meet the young American named David Hale, had a well thought out purpose behind it.

Should Bettina become involved in suspicion and gossip due to her last night’s experience, they would both have learned to know Bettina’s position. They would also understand how entirely accidental her entrance into the secret garden had been and how impossible to leave after the small gate had closed behind her.

Certainly the French authorities must accept so simple an explanation.

Mrs. Burton also felt a little amused by Miss Patricia’s now transparent reason for desiring her to be more elaborately dressed for dinner than she had originally intended.

As a matter of fact on retiring to her room she had hesitated before putting on the exquisite costume which Aunt Patricia had evidently just purchased for her from one of the best known designers of women’s clothes in Paris. The ungraciousness with which she had been ordered to her room and told to dress a second time was also explained. For years, ever since Miss Patricia’s inheritance from her brother of her large fortune, both Mrs. Burton and her husband, Captain Burton, had been protesting against the extravagant gifts which Miss Patricia frequently insisted upon bestowing upon them, and especially upon Mrs. Burton, who was the one person for whom she cared most in the world.

Whatever Miss Patricia’s economies and conscientious scruples with regard to spending money upon herself, she had no such scruples in connection with Mrs. Burton.

Therefore risking the possibility both of wounding and offending Miss Patricia, Mrs. Burton had positively declined allowing her to bestow upon her any gifts of value.

An ordinary evening frock, Miss Patricia would of course declare possessed no value. Yet Mrs. Burton had appreciated that the dress she was at this moment wearing at dinner was not of this character.

She had felt she should refuse to accept it, but she had not wished to hurt Miss Patricia and also she had not wished to relinquish the dress once she had tried it on.

It looked simple, yet Mrs. Burton had a sufficient knowledge and appreciation of clothes to recognize the exceptional beauty of her present gift.

As she sat talking and laughing with Senator Duval, Miss Patricia surveyed both Mrs. Burton and her own purchase with entire satisfaction.

The dress looked as if it had been designed solely for Mrs. Burton and could have been successfully worn by no one else.

Once Miss Patricia nodded with a peculiar satisfaction which, had her action been observed, no one would have understood.

As a matter of fact she was thinking that there were persons who insisted that Polly Burton, the well known actress, was in no sense a beautiful woman and that her success was due entirely to her magnetism.

Miss Patricia was wishing that these same critical persons might have beheld Mrs. Burton tonight.

The new evening frock was an unexpected combination of yellow and bronze chiffons and so skilfully were the delicate materials arranged that there was never a decided contrast. The two colors seemed to melt into each other as if they had been a combination from an artist’s brush.

The dress might have obscured another woman’s personality, making the woman appear of less interest than her costume, but this was not true of Mrs. Burton.

Every now and then one of the Camp Fire girls would glance toward Mrs. Burton with a fresh appreciation of her charm. Until tonight they had not seen her in this particular setting of richness and elegance.

During the years of their outdoor Camp Fire life together, Mrs. Burton had lived almost as simply and plainly as her Camp Fire girls.

Yet it was an interesting experience for all of them, this brief change into sumptuousness which Miss Patricia’s generosity was affording. Mrs. Burton revealed her own enjoyment of it.

At present her blue eyes were glowing with enthusiasm, as she sat talking with interest to her present dinner companion.

“I wonder if the French people will ever realize how glorious we feel France has been in the past four years to have endured so patiently and so courageously all the long strain of the war fought upon her soil. Remember that in the old days one always spoke of France as ‘La Belle France.’ Now I think she has earned the new title of ‘Glorious France.’”

But at this moment Mrs. Burton and Senator Duval were no longer able to continue their conversation, since at a signal from Miss Patricia, her guests were about to leave the table.