The rest of the guests were assembled in Constance’s drawing-room before the Cranes arrived. Crane himself always looked superbly handsome in evening-clothes, and Annette’s appearance was scarcely inferior in another way. As on her first meeting with Constance, Annette gave the impression of being exquisitely gowned. A simple white crêpe, cut low, showed off her beautiful arms and shoulders, and a few moss rosebuds in their green leaves gave the needed touch of colour to her costume. Simplicity is always the last form of elegance to be attained, and Annette Crane had attained it. Constance Maitland, too, was at her best, in a shimmering black gown, like a starry night, and with her grandmother’s pearl necklace around her white throat. Mrs. Willoughby, with resplendent black eyes and snow-white hair, looked like one of Sir Peter Lely’s court of beauties, and Mary Beekman was pretty enough to shine anywhere. When they were seated around the table the men secretly congratulated themselves on the looks of the women with whom they were to dine; and Thorndyke voiced this opinion by quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes’s suggestion that peas and potatoes could be warmed into an early fruition by surrounding them with a ring of handsome women--such as were then present--which caused the ladies all to beam on him. Annette, seated between the Admiral and Sir Mark le Poer, with Thorndyke’s kind eyes across the table to encourage her, and with Constance Maitland’s fine gift as a hostess to sustain her, felt perfectly at ease. Such was not the case with Crane himself. It was the first time he had ever dined at Constance Maitland’s house, and he yearned to distinguish himself. He wished the conversation would turn on public affairs; he felt he could easily lay them all under a spell then, forgetting that people don’t go out to dinner to be spellbound, but to enjoy an idle hour, and to exchange those pleasant freedoms and trifles which make up the sum of recreation. The Admiral, a white-moustached, charming old man, who had hobnobbed with princes, and was none the worse for it, began to compliment Annette on her gown, after having previously called her “my dear.” “Really,” he said, “that gown is a most stunning creation.” Thorndyke chimed in here: “Yes,” he said. “It makes Mrs. Crane look like a white narcissus blooming in a bed of mignonette.” No woman is ever disconcerted by compliments, and Annette was charmed at the praises lavished on her--and particularly in Crane’s presence. “I should say,” remarked Sir Mark le Poer, “with my feeble powers of comparison, that Mrs. Crane’s gown reminds me of some of your delicious American dishes, not all sauces and flavourings like our European things, but fresh and new and exquisite. I know I have a grovelling nature, but, ’pon my soul, is there anything more charming than a dish of delicate soft crabs on a bed of parsley----”