Bruce was quiet and subdued now
from combined nervousness and pride, but for the few days previous he
had been terribly trying to his unfortunate wife; nothing, according to
him, could be good enough for the purpose of impressing Madame Frabelle,
and he appeared to have lost all his confidence in Edith's undeniable
gift for receiving.
The flowers, the menu, the arrangement of the eight people--for the
dinner was still small, intimate and distinguished, as he had first
suggested--had been subjected to continual and maddening changes in its
scheme. Everyone had been disengaged and everyone had accepted--then he
wished he had asked other people instead.
When Edith was dressed Bruce put the last touch to his irritating
caprices by asking Edith to take out of her hair a bandeau of blue that
he had first asked her to put in. Every woman will know what agony that
must have caused. The pretty fair hair was waved and arranged specially
for this ornament, and when she took it out the whole scheme seemed to
her wrong. However, she looked very pretty, dressed in vaporous tulle of
a shade of blue which only a faultless complexion can bear.
Edith's complexion was her strong point.
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