An impalpable effluvium
was in the air, composed of the scent of flowers, the odor of delicate
food, the sounds of a discreetly small orchestra behind palms in the
hallway, the rustling of silks, and the pleasurable excitement of the
crowd of prosperous-looking women, pleasantly elated by the opportunity
for exhibiting their best toilets.

"To think of its being our little Lydia who's the center of all this!"
murmured Mrs. Sandworth, her loving eyes glistening with affectionate
pride. "It really is a splendid scene, isn't it, Marius?"

"If they were all gagged, it might be. Lord! how they yell!"

"Oh, at a _reception_!" Mrs. Sandworth's accent denoted that the word
was an explanation. "People have to, to make themselves heard."

"And why should they be so eager to accomplish that?" inquired the
doctor. "Listen!"

Standing as they were, tightly pressed in between a number of different
groups, their ears were assaulted by a disjointed mass of stentorian
conversation that gave a singular illusion as if it all came from one
inconceivably voluble source, the individuality of the voices being lost
in the screaming enunciation which, as Mrs. Sandworth had pointed out,
was a prerequisite of self-expression under the circumstances.

They heard: "--_For over a month and the sleeves were too see you again
at Mrs. Elliott's I'm pouring there from four I've got to dismiss one
with little plum-colored bows all along five dollars a week and the
washing out, and still impossible! I was there myself all the time and
they neither of thirty-five cents a pound for the most ordinary ferns
and red carnations was all they had, and we thought it rather skimpy
under the brought up in one big braid and caught down with at the
Peterson's they were pink and white with_--"

"_Oh, no, Madeleine! that was at the Burlingame's_." Mrs. Sandworth took
a running jump into the din and sank from her brother's sight,
vociferating: "_The Petersons had them of old-gold, don't you remember,
with little_--"

The doctor, worming his way desperately through the masses of
femininity, and resisting all attempts to engage him in the vocal fray,
emerged at length into the darkened hall where the air was, as he told
himself in a frenzied flight of the imagination, less like a combination
of a menagerie and a perfume shop. Here, in a quiet corner, sat Lydia's
father, alone. He held in one hand a large platter piled high with
wafer-like sandwiches, which he was