tate between benevolence
and fastidiousness. Janet and Charles had consented to forget the
episode of the Divorce Court. Marion, however, the eldest Orgreave
sister, mother of a family of daughters, had never received the
divorcee. On the other hand the divorcee, obeying her own code, had
obstinately ignored the wife of Jim Orgreave, a younger brother, who,
according to the universal opinion, had married disgracefully.

When the sisters-in-law had embraced, with that unconvincing fulsomeness
which is apt to result from a charitable act of oblivion, Janet turned
lovingly to George and asked after his mother. She was his mother's most
intimate friend. In the past he had called her Auntie, and was
accustomed to kiss her and be kissed. Indeed he feared that she might
want to kiss him now, but he was spared. As with negligence of tone he
answered her fond inquiries, he was busy reconstructing quite anew his
scheme for the bed-sittingroom--for it had actually been an
eighteenth-century scheme, and inspired by the notions of Mrs. John!

At the lunch-table George found that the party consisted of ten persons,
of whom one, seated next to himself, was a youngish, somewhat plump
woman who had arrived at the last moment. He had not been introduced to
her, nor to the four other strangers, for it had lately reached Bedford
Park that introductions were no longer the correct prelude to a meal. A
hostess who wished to be modern should throw her guests in ignorance
together and leave them to acquire knowledge by their own initiative.
This device added to the piquancy of a gathering. Moreover, there was
always a theory that each individual was well known, and that therefore
to introduce was subtly to insult. On Mrs. John's right was a
beautifully braided gentleman of forty or so, in brown, with brown
necktie and hair to match, and the hair was so perfect and ended so
abruptly that George at first took it for a wig; but soon afterwards he
decided that he had been unkind. Mr. Enwright was opposite to this brown
gentleman.

Mrs. John began by hoping that the brown gentleman had been to church.

"I'm afraid I haven't," he replied, with gentle regret in his voice.

And in the course of the conversation he was frequently afraid.
Nevertheless his attitude was by no means a fearful attitude; on the
contrary it was very confident. He would grasp the edge of the table
with his hands, and narrate at length, smiling amiably, and looking from
sid