_I_ asked people to sit down to the dinner we had to-night! Of
course we haven't eight millions, but I would be ashamed to serve a
cocktail, a soup--I frankly admit it was delicious--steaks, plain
lettuce salad, and fruit. I don't count coffee and cheese. No wines,
no entrees; I think it was decidedly QUEER."

"I wish some of you others would try it," said Willard White
unexpectedly. "I never get dinners like that, except at the club,
down in town. The cocktail was a rare sherry, the steaks were
broiled to a turn, and the salad dressing was a wonder. She had her
cheese just ripe enough, and samovar coffee to wind up with--what
more do you want? I serve wine myself, but champagne keeps you
thirsty all night, and other wines put me to sleep. I don't miss
wine! I call it a bang-up dinner, don't you, Parker?"

Parker Lloyd, with his wife on his arm, felt discretion his part.

"Well," he said innocently selecting the one argument most
distasteful to the ladies, "it was a man's dinner, Will. It was just
what a man likes, served the way he likes it. But if the girls like
flummery and fuss, I don't see why they shouldn't have it."

"Really!" said Mrs. White with a laugh that showed a trace of
something not hilarious, "really, you are all too absurd! We are a
long way from the authorities here, but I think we will find out
pretty soon that simple dinners have become the fad in Washington,
or Paris, and that your marvelous Mrs. Burgoyne is simply following
the fashion like all the rest of us."