Chapter 15
227 Words
The dinner-party went off with great clat. Had not all the guests read
in the New York _Herald_ that morning of Captain Fitzgerald's
good-fortune? He with his usual _savoir-vivre_ had arranged matters to
perfection. The company was chosen from among the nicest of his and Mrs.
McBride's friends.
The invitations had been couched in this form: "I want you to meet my
daughter, Mrs. Josiah Brown, my dear lady," or "dear fellow," as the
case might be. "She is having a little dinner at Madrid on Monday night,
and so hopes you will let me persuade you to come."
And the French Count, and Mr. Clutterbuck R. Tubbs and his daughter,
Theodora had asked herself. Also the Austrian Prince. The party
consisted of about twenty people--and the menu and the Tziganes were as
perfect as they could be, while the night might have been a night of
July--it happened to be that year when Paris was blessed with a
gloriously warm May.
Lord Bracondale was late: had not the post come in just as he was
starting, and brought him a letter, whose writing, although he had never
seen it before, filled him with thrills of joy.
Theodora had found time during the day to read and reread his epistle,
and to kiss it more than once with a guilty blush.
And she had written this answer:
- Writer
