It was with such scenes as these in her eyes that Edith went to her dressing-room to make her toilet for the Henderson dinner.

V

It was the first time they had dined with the Hendersons.  It was Jack’s doings.  “Certainly, if you wish it,” Edith had said when the invitation came.  The unmentioned fact was that Jack had taken a little flier in Oshkosh, and a hint from Henderson one evening at the Union, when the venture looked squally, had let him out of a heavy loss into a small profit, and Jack felt grateful.

“I wonder how Henderson came to do it?” Jack was querying, as he and old Fairfax sipped their five-o’clock “Manhattan.”

“Oh, Henderson likes to do a good-natured thing still, now and then.  Do you know his wife?”

“No.  Who was she?”

“Why, old Eschelle’s daughter, Carmen; of course you wouldn’t know; that was ten years ago.  There was a good deal of talk about it at the time.”

“How?”

“Some said they’d been good friends before Mrs. Henderson’s death.”

“Then Carmen, as you call her, wasn’t the first?”

“No, but she was an easy second.  She’s a social climber; bound to get there from the start.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Devilish.  She’s a little thing.  I saw her once at Homburg, on the promenade with her mother.

“The kind of sweet blonde, I said to myself, that would mix a man up in a duel before he knew where he was.”

“She must be interesting.”

“She was always clever, and she knows enough to play a straight game and when to propitiate.  I’ll bet a five she tells Henderson whom to be good to when the chance offers.”

“Then her influence on him is good?”

“My dear sir, she gets what she wants, and Henderson is going to the.....
well, look at the lines in his face.  I’ve known Henderson since he
came fresh into the Street.  He’d rarely knife a friend when his first
wife was living.  Now, when you see the old frank smile on his face, it’s
put on.”

It was half-past eight when Mr. Henderson with Mrs. Delancy on his arm led the way to the diningroom.  The procession was closed by Mrs. Henderson and Mr. Delancy.  The Van Dams were there, and Mrs. Chesney and the Chesney girls, and Miss Tavish, who sat on Jack’s right, but the rest of the guests were unknown to Jack, except by name.  There was a strong dash of the Street in the mixture, and although the Street was tabooed in the talk, there was such an emanation of aggressive prosperity at the table that Jack said afterwards that he felt as if he had been at a meeting of the board.