tropical plants in pots were set along between the posts on one side of
the room; and on the other were the lunch tables, where a great many
people were standing about, eating chicken and salmon salads, or
strawberries and ice-cream, and drinking claret-cup. From the whole rose
that blended odour of viands, of flowers, of stuff's, of toilet perfumes,
which is the characteristic expression of, all social festivities, and
which exhilarates or depresses--according as one is new or old to it.

Elbridge Mavering kept looking at the faces of the young men as if he
expected to see a certain one; then he turned his eyes patiently upon.
the faces around him. He had been introduced to a good many persons, but
he had come to that time of life when an introduction; unless charged
with some special interest, only adds the pain of doubt to the wearisome
encounter of unfamiliar people; and he had unconsciously put on the
severity of a man who finds himself without acquaintance where others are
meeting friends, when a small man, with a neatly trimmed reddish-grey
beard and prominent eyes, stepped in front of him, and saluted him with
the "Hello, Mavering!" of a contemporary.

His face, after a moment of question, relaxed into joyful recognition.
"Why, John Munt! is that you?" he said, and he took into his large moist
palm the dry little hand of his friend, while they both broke out into
the incoherencies of people meeting after a long time. Mr. Mavering spoke
in it voice soft yet firm, and with a certain thickness of tongue; which
gave a boyish charm to his slow, utterance, and Mr. Munt used the sort of
bronchial snuffle sometimes cultivated among us as a chest tone. But they
were cut short in their intersecting questions and exclamations by the
presence of the lady who detached herself from Mr. Munt's arm as if to
leave him the freer for his hand-shaking.