So when David Marshall came, in
the dress-coat that had not seen the light for over a year, and Eliza
Marshall, in the plum-colored silk whose only recent airing had been at
Rosy's coming-out, they had little to contend against save the house
itself and its furnishings.
Jane accompanied them. "Tom Bingham is going to take you out," Mrs. Bates
announced. "He is very much interested in you. He thinks you are quite a
clever girl."
"All right," replied Jane. "I'm interested in him, too. I think him a
person of great discernment."
"I had some notion of asking Rosy at first; Billy was so taken with her.
But this is really an old folks' party, after all. Besides, Billy had a
theatre engagement."
"Sorry," said Jane; "I'm sure pa and ma would have liked to meet him."
Whatever little plan Mrs. Bates may have been revolving in her mind, Jane
was too loyal to throw cold water on it. "So should I myself."
Susan Bates gave the Marshalls a short, plain dinner; she had no desire
to glorify herself or to embarrass her guests. But Eliza Marshall learned
more of contemporanics in that one evening than she had picked up in the
previous decade. She learned how people received, how they set their
tables and served them, how they built their houses and furnished them.
She learned not only the possibilities but the actualities of splendor
and luxury in the town where she had led a retired and humdrum existence
for nearly a lifetime.
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