She looked very lovely and quite
unfamiliar. But he had determined not to spoil her evening, and he
continued gravely smiling.
"You'd better like it, Clay," she said, and took a calculating
advantage of what she considered a softened mood. "It cost a
thousand dollars."
She went on past him, toward the room where the florist was still
putting the finishing touches to the flowers on the table. When the
first guests arrived, she came back and took her place near him, and
he was uncomfortably aware of the little start of surprise with
which she burst upon each new arrival, In the old and rather staid
surroundings of the club she looked out of place - oriental,
extravagant, absurd.
And Clayton Spencer suffered. To draw him as he stood in the club
that last year of our peace, 1916, is to draw him not only with his
virtues but with his faults; his over emphasis on small things; his
jealousy for his dignity; his hatred of the conspicuous and the
unusual.
When, after the informal manner of clubs, the party went in to
dinner, he was having one of the bad hours of his life to that time.
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