And if the food for any reason did not tempt them, or if it egregiously failed to coincide with their aspirations, they considered themselves aggrieved.
For, according to the game, they might not command; they had the right to seize all that was presented under their noses, like genteel tigers; and they had the right to refuse: that was all.
The dinner was thus a series of emotional crises for the diners, who knew only that full dishes and clean plates came endlessly from the banging door behind the screen, and that ravaged dishes and dirty plates vanished endlessly through the same door.
They were all eating similar food simultaneously; they began together and they finished together.
The flies that haunted the paper-bunches which hung from the chandeliers to the level of the flower-vases, were more free.
The sole event that chequered the exact regularity of the repast was the occasional arrival of a wine-bottle for one of the guests.
The receiver of the wine-bottle signed a small paper in exchange for it and wrote largely a number on the label of the bottle; then, staring at the number and fearing that after all it might be misread by a stupid maid or an unscrupulous compeer, he would re- write the number on another part of the label, even more largely.
Matthew Peel-Swynnerton obviously did not belong to this world.
He was a young man of twenty-five or so, not handsome, but elegant.
Though he was not in evening dress, though he was, as a fact, in a very light grey suit, entirely improper to a dinner, he was elegant.
The suit was admirably cut, and nearly new; but he wore it as though he had never worn anything else.
Also his demeanour, reserved yet free from self-consciousness, his method of handling a knife and fork, the niceties of his manner in transferring food from the silver dishes to his plate, the tone in which he ordered half a bottle of wine--all these details infallibly indicated to the company that Matthew Peel-Swynnerton was their superior.
Some folks hoped that he was the son of a lord, or even a lord.
He happened to be fixed at the end of the table, with his back to the window, and there was a vacant chair on either side of him; this situation favoured the hope of his high rank.
In truth, he was the son, the grandson, and several times the nephew, of earthenware manufacturers.
He noticed that the large 'compote' (as it was called in his trade) which marked the centre of the table, was the production of his firm.
This surprised him, for Peel, Swynnerton and Co., known and revered throughout the Five Towns as
'Peels,' did not cater for cheap markets.
A late guest startled the room, a fat, flabby, middle-aged man whose nose would have roused the provisional hostility of those who have convinced themselves that Jews are not as other men.
His nose did not definitely brand him as a usurer and a murderer of Christ, but it was suspicious.
His clothes hung loose, and might have been anybody's clothes.
He advanced with brisk assurance to the table, bowed, somewhat too effusively, to several people, and sat down next to Peel- Swynnerton.
One of the maids at once brought him a plate of soup, and he said: "Thank you, Marie," smiling at her.
He was evidently a habitue of the house.
His spectacled eyes beamed the superiority which comes of knowing girls by their names.
He was seriously handicapped in the race for sustenance, being two and a half courses behind, but he drew level with speed and then, having accomplished this, he sighed, and pointedly engaged Peel- Swynnerton with his sociable glance.
"Ah!" he breathed out.
"Nuisance when you come in late, sir!"
Peel-Swynnerton gave a reluctant affirmative.
"Doesn't only upset you! It upsets the house! Servants don't like it!"
"No," murmured Peel-Swynnerton, "I suppose not."
"However, it's not often I'm late," said the man.
"Can't help it sometimes.
Business!
Worst of these French business people is that they've no notion of time.
Appointments ...! God bless my soul!"
"Do you come here often?" asked Peel-Swynnerton.
He detested the fellow, quite inexcusably, perhaps because his serviette was tucked under his chin; but he saw that the fellow was one of your determined talkers, who always win in the end.
Moreover, as being clearly not an ordinary tourist in Paris, the fellow mildly excited his curiosity.
"I live here," said the other.
"Very convenient for a bachelor, you know.
Have done for years.
My office is just close by.
You may know my name--Lewis Mardon."
Peel-Swynnerton hesitated. The hesitation convicted him of not 'knowing his Paris' well.
"House-agent," said Lewis Mardon, quickly.
"Oh yes," said Peel-Swynnerton, vaguely recalling a vision of the name among the advertisements on newspaper kiosks.
"I expect," Mr. Mardon went on, "my name is as well-known as anybody's in Paris."
"I suppose so," assented Peel-Swynnerton.
The conversation fell for a few moments.