The national determination not to be “downed” by the despised foreigner, to show a wealth of material resource obscurely felt to compensate for the possible lack of other distinctions—­this resolve had taken, in Mrs. Boykin’s case, the shape—­or rather the multiple shapes—­of a series of culinary feats, of gastronomic combinations, which would have commanded her deep respect had she seen them on any other table, and which she naturally relied on to produce the same effect on her guest.  Whether or not the desired result was achieved, Madame de Treymes’ manner did not specifically declare; but it showed a general complaisance, a charming willingness to be amused, which made Mr. Boykin, for months afterward, allude to her among his compatriots as “an old friend of my wife’s—­takes potluck with us, you know.  Of course there’s not a word of truth in any of those ridiculous stories.”

It was only when, to Durham’s intense surprise, Mr. Boykin hazarded to his neighbour the regret that they had not been so lucky as to “secure the Prince”—­it was then only that the lady showed, not indeed anything so simple and unprepared as embarrassment, but a faint play of wonder, an under-flicker of amusement, as though recognizing that, by some odd law of social compensation, the crudity of the talk might account for the complexity of the dishes.

But Mr. Boykin was tremulously alive to hints, and the conversation at once slid to safer topics, easy generalizations which left Madame de Treymes ample time to explore the table, to use her narrowed gaze like a knife slitting open the unsuspicious personalities about her.  Nannie and Katy Durham, who, after much discussion (to which their hostess candidly admitted them), had been included in the feast, were the special objects of Madame de Treymes’ observation.  During dinner she ignored in their favour the other carefully-selected guests—­the fashionable art-critic, the old Legitimist general, the beauty from the English Embassy, the whole impressive marshalling of Mrs. Boykin’s social resources—­and when the men returned to the drawing-room, Durham found her still fanning in his sisters the flame of an easily kindled enthusiasm.  Since she could hardly have been held by the intrinsic interest of their converse, the sight gave him another swift intuition of the working of those hidden forces with which Fanny de Malrive felt herself encompassed.  But when Madame de Treymes, at his approach, let him see that it was for him she had been reserving herself, he felt that so graceful an impulse needed no special explanation.  She had the art of making it seem quite natural that they should move away together to the remotest of Mrs. Boykin’s far-drawn salons, and that there, in a glaring privacy of brocade and ormolu, she should turn to him with a smile which avowed her intentional quest of seclusion.

“Confess that I have done a great deal for you!” she exclaimed, making room for him on a sofa judiciously screened from the observation of the other rooms.