Marguerite, which Vendale resolved should be a
chance of speaking privately to her as well. A
cordial note from Obenreizer invited him, on
New Year's Day, to a little family dinner in
Soho-square. "We shall be only four," the
note said. "We shall be only two," Vendale
determined, "before the evening is out!"

New Year's Day, among the English, is
associated with the giving and receiving of dinners,
and with nothing more. New Year's Day,
among the foreigners, is the grand opportunity
of the year for the giving and receiving of
presents. It is occasionally possible to acclimatise
a foreign custom. In this instance Vendale felt
no hesitation about making the attempt. His
one difficulty was to decide what his New Year's
gift to Marguerite should be. The defensive
pride of the peasant's daughter—morbidly
sensitive to the inequality between her social position
and his—would be secretly roused against
him if he ventured on a rich offering. A gift,
which a poor man's purse might purchase, was
the one gift that could be trusted to find its
way to her heart, for the giver's sake. Stoutly
resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds
and rubies, Vendale bought a brooch of the
filagree-work of Genoa—the simplest and most
unpretending ornament that he could find in the
jeweller's shop.

He slipped his gift into Marguerite's hand as
she held it out to welcome him on the day of
the dinner.

"This is your first New Year's Day in
England," he said. "Will you let me help to
make it like a New Year's Day at home?"

She thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she
looked at the jeweller's box, uncertain what it
might contain. Opening the box, and discovering
the studiously simple form under which
Vendale's little keepsake offered itself to her,
she penetrated his motive on the spot. Her
face turned on him brightly, with a look which
said, "I own you have pleased and flattered me."
Never had she been so charming, in Vendale's
eyes, as she was at that moment. Her winter
dress—a petticoat of dark silk, with a bodice
of black velvet rising to her neck, and enclosing
it softly in a little circle of swansdown—
heightened, by all the force of contrast, the
dazzling fairness of her hair and her complexion.
It was only when she turned aside from him to
the glass, and, taking out the brooch that she
wore, put his New Year's gift in its place, that
Vendale's attention wandered far enough away
from her to discover the presence of other
persons in the room. He now became conscious
that the hands of Obenreizer were affectionately
in possession of his elbows. He now heard the
voice of Obenreizer thanking him for his attention
to Marguerite, with the faintest possible
ring of mockery in its tone. ("Such a simple
present, dear sir! and showing such nice tact!")
He now discovered, for the first time, that there
was one other guest, and but one, besides
himself, whom Obenreizer presented as a compatriot
and friend. The friend's face was mouldy, and
the friend's figure was fat. His age was
suggestive of the autumnal period of human life.

In the course of the evening he developed two
extraordinary capacities. One was a capacity
for silence; the other was a capacity for emptying
bottles.

Madame Dor was not in the room. Neither
was there any visible place reserved for her
when they sat down to table. Obenreizer
explained that it was "the good Dor's simple
habit to dine always in the middle of the day.
She would make her excuses later in the evening."
Vendale wondered whether the good
Dor had, on this occasion, varied her domestic
employment from cleaning Obenreizer's gloves
to cooking Obenreizer's dinner. This at least
was certain—the dishes served were, one and
all, as achievements in cookery, high above the
reach of the rude elementary art of England.
The dinner was unobtrusively perfect. As for
the wine, the eyes of the speechless friend
rolled over it, as in solemn ecstasy. Sometimes
he said "Good!" when a bottle came in full;
and sometimes he said "Ah!" when a bottle
went out empty—and there his contributions
to the gaiety of the evening ended.

Silence is occasionally infectious. Oppressed
by private anxieties of their own, Marguerite
and Vendale appeared to feel the influence of the
speechless friend. The whole responsibility of
keeping the talk going rested on Obenreizer's
shoulders, and manfully did Obenreizer sustain it.
He opened his heart in the character of an
enlightened foreigner, and sang the praises of
England. When other topics ran dry, he returned to
this inexhaustible source, and always set the
stream running again as copiously as ever.
Obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or
a leg to have been born an Englishman. Out of
England there was no such institution as a
home, no such thing as a fireside, no such
object as a beautiful woman. His dear Miss
Marguerite would excuse him, if he accounted
for her attractions on the theory that English
blood must have mixed at some former time
with their obscure and unknown ancestry.
Survey this English nation, and behold a tall,
clean, plump, and solid people! Look at their
cities! What magnificence in their public
buildings! What admirable order and
propriety in their streets! Admire their laws,
combining the eternal principle of justice with the
other eternal principle of pounds, shillings, and
pence; and applying the product to all civil
injuries, from an injury to a man's honour, to
an injury to a man's nose! You have ruined
my daughter—pounds, shillings, and pence!
You have knocked me down with a blow in my
face pounds, shillings, and pence! Where
was the material prosperity of such a country
as that to stop? Obenreizer, projecting
himself into the future, failed to see the end of it.
Obenreizer's enthusiasm entreated permission
to exhale itself, English fashion, in a toast.
Here is our modest little dinner over, here is
our frugal dessert on the table, and here is the
admirer of England conforming to national
customs, and making a speech! A toast to
your white cliffs of Albion, Mr. Vendale! to
your national virtues, your charming climate,