If it had
been otherwise I should have been disappointed in the man's completeness.
Then, looking at them from out of the library shadows, I wondered what he
would have thought if his entry had been at the Latham home instead of at
Miss Lavinia's, how he would have passed the ordeal of Perkins, Potts,
and Parker, and if his spontaneity would have been marred by the
formality.
Perhaps he would have been oblivious. Some men have the happy gift of
not being annoyed by things that are thorns in the flesh to otherwise
quite independent women. Father, however, is always amused by flunkies,
and treats them as an expected part of the show; even as the jovial
Autocrat did when, at a grand London house, "it took full six men in red
satin knee-breeches" to admit him and his companion.
Bradford did not wear an evening suit; neither did he deem apology
necessary. If he thought of the matter at all, which I doubt, he
evidently considered that he was among friends, who would make whatever
excuses were necessary from the circumstances of his hurried trip.
Then we went in to the dining-room, Miss Lavinia leading with Martin
Cortright, as the most recent acquaintance, and therefore formal guest,
the rest of us following in a group. Miss Lavinia, of course, took the
head of the table, Evan opposite, and the two men, Cortright on her right
and Bradford on her left, making Sylvia and me vis-a-vis.
The men appropriated their buttonhole flowers naturally.
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