Close upon the heels of Birdaline’s unconscious affront to Deborah, Birdaline herself received an unconscious affront. Asaph, desiring to be hospitable and to pay beauty its due, came forward at the end of the song to where little Pamela stood, receiving Carthage’s homage with all the gracious condescension of Peoria. And Asaph roared out in the easy hearing of both his own wife and of Pamela’s mother: "Well, Miss Pamela, you sang grand. I got no ear for music, but you suit me right down to the ground. And you’re so dog-on pretty! I wouldn’t care if you sang like all-get-out. You look like your mother did when she was your age. You might not think it to look at your ma now, but in her day she was one of the best lookers in this whole town; same color eyes as you–and hair–and, oh, a regular heart-breaker." Asaph’s memory of Birdaline’s eyes and hair was wrong, as a man’s usually is. His praise was a two-edged sword of tactlessness. He slashed Birdaline by forgetting her color and by implying that she retained no traces of her beauty, and he gashed Josie because he implied a livelier memory of Birdaline’s early graces than a husband has any right to cherish. Asaph had counted on doing a very gracious thing. When he had finished his little oration he glanced at Birdaline for recompense and received a glare of anger; he turned away to Josie and received from her eyes a buffet of wrath. He felt that he had made a fool of himself again, and his ready temper was up at once. He crossed glares with his wife, and everybody in eye-shot instantly felt a duel begun. It was not going to be so dull an evening, after all. Even Debby lingered to see what the result of the Shillaber conflict would be. She was also checked by the evidences that refreshments were about to be served. Chicken-salad and ice-cream were not frequent enough in her life to be overlooked. Disparagement and derision were her every-day porridge. Ice-cream was a party. So she lingered. The Shillabers’ hired girl, in a clean apron and a complete armor of blushes, appeared at the dining-room door and beckoned. Josie summoned her more than willing children to pass the plates. She nodded to Asaph to come and roll the ice-cream freezer into place and scrape off the salty ice. Then she waylaid him in the kitchen, and their wrangle reached the speedily overcrowded dining-room in little tantalizing slices as the swinging door opened to admit or emit one of the children. But it always swung shut at once. It was like an exciting serial with most of the instalments omitted. CHAPTER III The guests made desperate efforts to pretend that they were unaware to pretend that they were unaware of the feud and at the same time to follow it. They were polite enough even to try to ignore the salt the wrathful Asaph had let slip into the ice-cream.