"I think the early dinner in 'Paradise Lost' quite the dullest meal on record," said Claude. "To begin with, it was vegetarian and non-alcoholic. A man and his wife--the wife waiting at table--and one prosy guest monologuing from the eggs to the apples." "There is no mention of eggs. I don't think they had anything so comfortable as a poultry yard in Eden; no buff Orpingtons, or white Wyandottes, only eagles and nightingales," said Susie, and at this moment the butler announced dinner in a confidential murmur, as if it were a State secret. He was neither stout nor elderly; but in his tall slimness and grave countenance there was a dignity that would have reduced the most emancipated of matrons to good behaviour. "I should never dare to draw _him_ into the conversation," whispered Susie, as Claude offered his arm to Lady Okehampton. "Nothing would tempt that perfect creature to a breach of etiquette." The hen-dinner, relieved by one man, was charming. Not too long a dinner; for one of the discoveries of this easy-going century is that people don't want to sit for an hour and a half steeping themselves in the savour of expensive food, while solemn men in plush and silk stockings stalk behind their back in an endless procession, carrying dishes whose contents are coldly glanced at and coldly refused. The dinner was short, but perfect: too short for the talk, which was gay and animated from start to finish. Lady Susan and Mr. Rutherford were the talkers, Vera and her aunt only coming in occasionally: Lady Okehampton with a comfortable common-sense that was meant to keep the rodomontade within bounds. Claude was an omnivorous reader, and had always a new set of anecdotes and epigrams with which to keep the talk alive, anecdotes so brief and sparkling that he seemed to flash them across the table like pistol shots. French, German, or Italian, his accent was faultless, and his enunciation clear as that of the most finished comedian; while in the give and take of friendly chaff with such an interlocutor as Lady Susan, he was a past master. Vera did not talk much, but she looked radiant, the lovely embodiment of youth and gladness. Her light laughter rang clear above Susan's, after Claude's most successful stories. Once only during that gay repast was a graver note sounded, and it came from the most frivolous of the party, from Susie Amphlett, who had one particular aversion, which she sometimes enlarged upon with a morbid interest. Age was Susan's bugbear. "I think of it when I wake in the night, like Camilla, in 'Great Expectations,'" she said, looking round the table with frightened eyes, as if she were seeing ghosts. The grapes and peaches had been handed, and it was the confidential quarter of an hour after the servants had gone.