Rushbrook seldom drank wine; Somers had selected
it. But the barbaric opulence of the entertainment culminated in the
Californian fruits, piled in pyramids on silver dishes, gorgeous and
unreal in their size and painted beauty, and the two Divas smiled over
a basket of grapes and peaches as outrageous in dimensions and glaring
color as any pasteboard banquet at which they had professionally
assisted. As the courses succeeded each other, under the exaltation of
wine, conversation became more general as regarded participation, but
more local and private as regarded the subject, until Miss Nevil could
no longer follow it. The interests of that one, the hopes of another,
the claims of a third, in affairs that were otherwise uninteresting,
were all discussed with singular youthfulness of trust that to her
alone seemed remarkable. Not that she lacked entertainment from the
conversation of her clever companion, whose confidences and criticisms
were very pleasant to her; but she had a gentlewoman's instinct that he
talked to her too much, and more than was consistent with his duties
as the general host.
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