air, but did not
put their wearers wholly at their ease. The father's coat was of black
broadcloth, and he wore it unbuttoned; the skirts were long, and the
sleeves came down to his knuckles; he shook hands with his guests, and
the same dryness seemed to be in his palm and throat, as he huskily
asked each to take a chair. Conrad's coat was of modern texture and cut,
and was buttoned about him as if it concealed a bad conscience within
its lapels; he met March with his entreating smile, and he seemed no
more capable of coping with the situation than his father. They both
waited for Fulkerson, who went about and did his best to keep life
in the party during the half-hour that passed before they sat down at
dinner. Beaton stood gloomily aloof, as if waiting to be approached on
the right basis before yielding an inch of his ground; Colonel Woodburn,
awaiting the moment when he could sally out on his hobby, kept himself
intrenched within the dignity of a gentleman, and examined askance the
figure of old Lindau as he stared about the room, with his fine head up,
and his empty sleeve dangling over his wrist. March felt obliged to him
for wearing a new coat in the midst of that hostile luxury, and he was
glad to see Dryfoos make up to him and begin to talk with him, as if he
wished to show him particular respect, though it might have been because
he was less afraid of him than of the others. He heard Lindau saying,
"Boat, the name is Choarman?" and Dryfoos beginning to explain his
Pennsylvania Dutch origin, and he suffered himself, with a sigh of
relief, to fall into talk with Kendricks, who was always pleasant; he
was willing to talk about something besides himself, and had no opinions
that he was not ready to hold in abeyance for the time being out of
kindness to others. In that group of impassioned individualities, March
felt him a refuge and comfort--with his harmless dilettante intention of
some day writing a novel, and his belief that he was meantime collecting
material for it.

Fulkerson, while breaking the ice for the whole company, was mainly
engaged in keeping Colonel Woodburn thawed out. He took Kendricks
away from March and presented him to the colonel as a person who,
like himself, was looking into social conditions; he put one hand on
Kendricks's shoulder, and one on the colonel's, and made some flattering
joke, apparently at the expense of the young fellow, and then left them.
March heard Kendricks protest in vai