First came the
children, vaunting their fatigue, then a black maid or two, with twice
their share of baskets, and then our three spouses; the Baron came last
and was mute. The two ladies called cheery, weary good-byes to another
contingent, that passed on by the gate, and hail and farewell to our fat
neighbor as he went home. Then they yielded their small burdens to us,
climbed the veranda stairs and entered the house.
VII
No battle, it is said, is ever fought, and I dare say no game--worth
counting--is ever played, exactly as previously planned. One of our
company had planned, very secretly, as he thought, a battle; another,
almost openly, was already waging hers; while a third was playing a game--
though probably, I admit, fighting, inwardly, her poor weak battle also;
and none of the three offered an exception to this rule. The first clear
proof of it--which it still gives me a low sort of pleasure to recall--was
my prompt discovery, as we gathered around the tea-board, to eat the
picnic's remains, that our Flora was out of humor with the Baron. It was
plain that the whole day's flood of small experiences had been to her
pretty vanity a Tantalus's cup. She was quick to tell, with an irritation,
which she genuinely tried to conceal, and with scarcely an ounce of words
to a ton of dead-sweet insinuation, what a social failure he had chosen to
be.
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