At their several party dinners they had met agreeable people who said, “You must come to us, soon!” and then forgot them blissfully. London’s indifference to her charms depressed Fran, seemed to frighten her. She was wistfully grateful when he thought of ordering flowers, when he found some unexpected and cheery place to dine. Half the time he was pitiful that she should not be having her career; half the time he rejoiced that they had never been so close together as now, in their isolation.
She was almost timid when Jack Starling, the nephew of Tub Pearson and a secretary at the American Embassy in London, came bouncing back to town, called formally, inspected Fran’s complexion and Sam’s grammar, and adopted them with reserved enthusiasm. He was a pleasant, well-pressed young dancing-man, and full of ideas—not especially good ideas, but very lively and voluble. He called Sam “sir,” which pleased Sam almost as much as it embarrassed him. In Zenith, no one except men who had served as officers in the Great War used “sir,” save as a furious address to five-year-old boys whom they were about to beat.
And suddenly, after Starling’s coming, Lockert was strolling in as though he had never been away, and Lord Herndon was in town for a month and, without any very traceable cause, the Dodsworths had more lunches, teas, dinners, dances, and theater parties than even a lady lion-hunter could have endured. Sam was so happy to see Fran excited and occupied that not for a fortnight did he admit privately that the only thing that bored him more than being an elephantine wallflower at dances was being a drowsy and food-clogged listener at dinner-parties; and that all these people whom they must call up, whom they simply mustn’t forget to invite to their own small dinners, were persons whom he could with cheers never see again. Nor could he persuade himself that their own affairs (in a private room at the Ritz, with himself pretending to supervise the cocktails before dinner and Fran making a devil of a fuss about the flowers) were any livelier than other people’s. The conversation was as cautious, the bread sauce quite as bready, and the dread hour from nine-thirty to ten-thirty passed on no swifter wings of laughter.
Mr. A. B. Hurd was a relief, now that Fran was busy enough so that Sam could slip away and revel with Mr. Hurd in shop gossip and motor prices and smutty stories and general American lowness.
Mr. Hurd had done his best to be hospitable, and as it had not occurred to him that there were people, like Fran, who did not wish to be hospitalitized, he had been bewildered and become shy—even his superb salesman’s confidence had become shy. He had once, after innumerous telephone-calls, been invited by Fran to tea, and he had brought his Oklahoma-born wife up from the country and put on his rather antiquated morning coat and very new spats.
He came into the Dodsworths’ suite briskly enough, but when Mrs. Hurd crept in after her boisterous husband, Sam was so touched that he rose to the courtliness he could occasionally show. She was dressed in blue silk, with a skirt hiked up in back. Her hands looked the more rough because they had just been manicured, with rosy and pointed nails. Hurd’s salary was adequate now, but Sam felt that Mrs. Hurd had for years washed dishes, diapers, muddy floors. Her lips were round with smiling, but her eyes were frightened as she shook Sam’s hand in the small white-enameled foyer of the suite, and cried:
“My! I’ve heard so much about you, Mr. Dodsworth! Al is always talking about you and what a wonderful executive you are and what a lovely time he had with you folks when he was back in Zenith the last time and how much he enjoyed dining with you and—It’s just lovely that you’re here in London now and I do hope Mrs. Dodsworth and you will find time to come down to the country and see us. I know how busy you must be with parties and all but—”
Sam ushered her into the sitting-room; he tried to catch Fran’s eye to warn her to be good, while he was rumbling:
“Fran, this is Mrs. Hurd. Mighty great pleasure to meet her, after we’ve known her husband so long.”
“How d’you do, Mrs. Hurd?” said Fran, and it was worthy of Lady Ouston at her politest and rudest. Fran pronounced it “Howjduh,” and her voice rose at the end in a quiet brusqueness which finished Mrs. Hurd completely.
Mrs. Hurd fluttered, “I’m real pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” then sat forward in her chair, refused the cake she most wanted, looked terrified while Fran purred about Paris. She did not venture on the invitation to the country which she had obviously come to deliver. Between Sam’s heavy compliments to Hurd, Hurd’s heavy compliments to Sam, and Fran’s poisonously sweet manner of saying, “It was so very kind of you to come all this way in to see us, Mrs.—uh—Hurd,” she was bewildered, and she ventured on no conversation beyond “My, you’ve got such lovely rooms here. I guess you know an awful lot of English folks—lords and everything, don’t you?”
After that, Hurd resentfully gave up telephoning.
But when, with Lockert and Jack Starling returned, Fran found enough of the admiration natural to her, Sam was now and then able to sneak meanly out and get hold of Hurd for odd meals.
After a fortnight Hurd suggested, at luncheon:
“Say, Chief, I’d like to pull off a bachelor dinner for you one of these evenings—some of the high-class American businessmen here in London—just sit around and be natural and tell our middle names. Think you could duck your good lady and have an Old Home Week? What about next Saturday evening?”
“Fine. I’ll see if my wife has anything on.”
“Well, I hope she has. Strict lot of police in this ole town! Ha, ha, ha,
