his wife,
who was talking with Miss Kingsbury and Mrs. Sewell; Irene was with
Miss Nanny Corey. He could not hear what they were talking about; but
if Penelope had come, he knew that she would have done them all credit.
He meant to let her know how he felt about her behaviour when he got
home. It was a shame for her to miss such a chance. Irene was looking
beautiful, as pretty as all the rest of them put together, but she was
not talking, and Lapham perceived that at a dinner-party you ought to
talk. He was himself conscious of having, talked very well. He now
wore an air of great dignity, and, in conversing with the other
gentlemen, he used a grave and weighty deliberation. Some of them
wanted him to go into the library. There he gave his ideas of books.
He said he had not much time for anything but the papers; but he was
going to have a complete library in his new place. He made an
elaborate acknowledgment to Bromfield Corey of his son's kindness in
suggesting books for his library; he said that he had ordered them all,
and that he meant to have pictures. He asked Mr. Corey who was about
the best American painter going now. "I don't set up to be a judge of
pictures, but I know what I like," he said. He lost the reserve which
he had maintained earlier, and began to boast. He himself introduced
the subject of his paint, in a natural transition from pictures; he
said Mr. Corey must take a run up to Lapham with him some day, and see
the Works; they would interest him, and he would drive him round the
country; he kept most of his horses up there, and he could show Mr.
Corey some of the finest Jersey grades in the country. He told about
his brother William, the judge at Dubuque; and a farm he had out there
that paid for itself every year in wheat. As he cast off all fear, his
voice rose, and he hammered his arm-chair with the thick of his hand
for emphasis. Mr. Corey seemed impressed; he sat perfectly quiet,
listening, and Lapham saw the other gentlemen stop in their talk every
now and then to listen. After this proof of his ability to interest
them, he would have liked to have Mrs. Lapham suggest again that he was
unequal to their society, or to the society of anybody else. He
surprised himself by his ease among men whose names had hitherto
overawed him. He got to calling Bromfield Corey by his surname alone.
He did not understand why young Corey seemed so preoccupied, and he
took occasion to tell the comp