Then you go into the drawing-room.  You don’t light the fire until the last moment, because you want it to be burning brightly when your guests arrive.  Your drawing-room looks a little stiff somehow, but an open fire more than anything else makes a room inviting, and you light it just as your first guest rings the bell.  As Mr. Clubwin Doe enters, the room looks charming, then suddenly the fire smokes, and in the midst of the smoke your other guests arrive.  Every one begins to cough and blink.  They are very polite, but the smoke, growing each moment denser, is not to be overlooked.  Mrs. Toplofty takes matters in her own hands and makes Mr. Doe and your husband carry the logs, smoke and all, and throw them into the yard.  The room still thick with smoke is now cheerlessly fireless, and another factor beginning to distress you is that, although everyone has arrived, there is no sign of dinner.  You wait, at first merely eager to get out of the smoke-filled drawing-room.  Gradually you are becoming nervous—­what can have happened?  The dining-room door might be that of a tomb for all the evidence of life behind it.  You become really alarmed.  Is dinner never going to be served?  Everyone’s eyes are red from the smoke, and conversation is getting weaker and weaker.  Mrs. Toplofty—­evidently despairing—­sits down.  Mrs. Worldly also sits, both hold their eyes shut and say nothing.  At last the dining-room door opens, and Sigrid instead of bowing slightly and saying in a low tone of voice, “Dinner is served,” stands stiff as a block of wood, and fairly shouts:  “Dinner’s all ready!”

You hope no one heard her, but you know very well that nothing escaped any one of those present.  And between the smoke and the delay and your waitress’ manners, you are already thoroughly mortified by the time you reach the table.  But you hope that at least the dinner will be good.  For the first time you are assailed with doubt on that score.  And again you wait, but the oyster course is all right.  And then comes the soup.  You don’t have to taste it to see that it is wrong.  It looks not at all as “clear” soup should!  Its color, instead of being glass-clear amber, is greasy-looking brown.  You taste it, fearing the worst, and the worst is realized.  It tastes like dish-water—­and is barely tepid.  You look around the table; Mr. Kindhart alone is trying to eat it.

In removing the plates, Delia, the assistant, takes them up by piling one on top of the other, clashing them together as she does so.  You can feel Mrs. Worldly looking with almost hypnotized fascination—­as her attention might be drawn to a street accident against her will.  Then there is a wait.  You wait and wait, and looking in front of you, you notice the bare tablecloth without a plate.  You know instantly that the service is wrong, but you find yourself puzzled to know how it should have been done.  Finally Sigrid comes in with a whole dozen plates stacked in a pile, which she proceeds to deal around the table.  You at least know that to try to interfere would only make matters worse.  You hold your own cold fingers in your lap knowing that you must sit there, and that you can do nothing.