He sat down, wondering why the deuce he’d stood up, and unhappily realized that Nelly was examining Istra and himself with cool hostility.  In a flurry he glowered at Istra as she nonchalantly sat down opposite him, beside Mrs. Arty, and incuriously unfolded her napkin.  He thought that in her cheerful face there was an expression of devilish amusement.

He blushed.  He furiously buttered his bread as Mrs. Arty remarked to the assemblage: 

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want you all to meet Miss Istra Nash.  Miss Nash—­you’ve met Mr. Wrenn; Miss Nelly Croubel, our baby; Tom Poppins, the great Five-Hundred player; Mrs. Ebbitt, Mr. Ebbitt, Miss Proudfoot.”

Istra Nash lifted her bowed eyes with what seemed shyness, hesitated, said “Thank you” in a clear voice with a precise pronunciation, and returned to her soup, as though her pleasant communion with it had been unpleasantly interrupted.

The others began talking and eating very fast and rather noisily.  Miss Mary Proudfoot’s thin voice pierced the clamor: 

“I hear you have just come to New York, Miss Nash.”

“Yes.”

“Is this your first visit to—­”

“No.”

Miss Proudfoot rancorously took a long drink of water.

Nelly attempted, bravely: 

“Do you like New York, Miss Nash?”

“Yes.”

Nelly and Miss Proudfoot and Tom Poppins began discussing shoe-stores, all at once and very rapidly, while hot and uncomfortable Mr. Wrenn tried to think of something to say....  Good Lord, suppose Istra “queered” him at Mrs. Arty’s!...  Then he was angry at himself and all of them for not appreciating her.  How exquisite she looked, with her tired white face!

As the soup-plates were being removed by Annie, the maid, with an elaborate confusion and a general passing of plates down the line, Istra Nash peered at the maid petulantly.  Mrs. Arty frowned, then grew artificially pleasant and said: 

“Miss Nash has just come back from Paris.  She’s a regular European traveler, just like Mr. Wrenn.”

Mrs. Samuel Ebbitt piped:  “Mr. Ebbitt was to Europe.  In 1882.”

“No ’twa’n’t, Fannie; ’twas in 1881,” complained Mr. Ebbitt.

Miss Nash waited for the end of this interruption as though it were a noise which merely had to be endured, like the Elevated.

Twice she drew in her breath to speak, and the whole table laid its collective knife and fork down to listen.  All she said was: 

“Oh, will you pardon me if I speak of it now, Mrs. Ferrard, but would you mind letting me have my breakfast in my room to-morrow?  About nine?  Just something simple—­a canteloupe and some shirred eggs and chocolate?”

“Oh no; why, yes, certainly, “mumbled Mrs. Arty, while the table held its breaths and underneath them gasped: 

“Chocolate!”

“A canteloupe!”

“Shirred eggs!”