"Oh! the thing's all right," said Mabel, who was in a severely exalted mood by this time.

They trooped into the dining-room, where girls were provided in a crushy way with seats round the room, and boys ran about and handed them things. Mrs. Leighton gave the head of the table to Mabel, who sat in an elderly way and poured coffee. The salad was magnificent. Aunt Katharine had come in "to look on." Mrs. Leighton told her how Mabel had arranged forty-two plates that morning, with water-lily tomatoes cut ready and chopped chicken in the centres, and had nearly driven Cook silly with the shelves she used for storing these things in cool places.

"Wherever you looked--miles and miles of little plates with red water lilies," said Mrs. Leighton. "It was most distracting for Cook. I wonder the woman stays."

"What a mess," said Aunt Katharine. "You spoil these girls, you know, Lucy."

"Oh--it's Mr. Leighton," said she sadly.

"I don't think mayonnaise is a very suitable thing for young people's parties," said Aunt Katharine dingily.

By this time the white cake with "Cuthbert" in pink was handed solemnly round. Every person had a large piece, it looked so good.

Every one said, "Walnut, how lovely," when they took the first bite.

Every one stopped at the second bite.

"Cuthbert," called out Mrs. Leighton after she had investigated her own piece, "I notice that your father has none of the cake. Please take him a slice and see that he eats it."

Mr. Leighton waved it away.

"I do not eat walnuts," said he.

Mrs. Leighton went to him.

"John, this is not fair, this is your idea of a party," she said. "You ought to eat Cuthbert's cake."

"He can't," cried Jean; "n.o.body can. It's only Mabel who likes iced marbles."

"You will all have to eat gingerbread," said the voice of Betty hopefully.

Jean started up in great indignation with a large battered-looking "orange iced cake" ready to cut.

"Betty always gets herself advertized first," she complained. "Please try my orange icing."

They did--they tried anything in order to escape Mabel's walnuts. It occurred to the girls that Mabel would be quite broken up at the wretched failure of her wonderful cake--the Cuthbert cake too. It was such a drop from their high pedestal of perfection. Even mummy, who had been so much on her own high horse at all their successes, now became quite feelingly sorry about the cake. She gave directions for having the loose pieces collected and surrept.i.tiously put out of sight, but the large dish had to remain in front of Mabel. Mabel was still charmingly occupied over her coffee cups. She poured in a pretty direct way and yet managed to talk interestedly to Mr. Meredith. He was invaluable as a helper.

"And now, at last," said she in a most winning manner, "you must have a slice of my cake. I baked it myself, and it's full of walnuts. Don't you love walnuts?"

"I do," said Mr. Meredith.

May Turberville nudged Betty, and Lance stared open-mouthed at the courage of Mabel. He would do a good deal for the Leighton girls, but he barred that particular cake. An electric feeling of comprehension ran round the company. They seemed to know that Mabel was about to taste her own cake and give a large slice to Mr. Meredith. They made little airy remarks to one another in order to keep the conversation going, so that Mabel might not detect by some sudden pause that every one was watching her. One heard Julia Gardiner say in an intense manner to Harry Somerton that the begonias at Mrs. Somerton's were a "perfect dream." And Harry answered that for his part he liked football better.

Even Mr. Leighton noticed the trend of things, and stopped discussing higher morality with Aunt Katharine.

Mabel seemed to take an interminable time. She gave Mr. Meredith a large piece, and insisted besides on serving him with an unwieldy lump of pink icing containing a large scrawly "e" from the last syllable of Cuthbert's name.

"E--aw," brayed Lance gently, and Betty exploded into a long series of helpless giggles.

"What a baby you are, Lance," said Mabel, amiably laughing. She bit daintily at the walnut cake.

Mr. Meredith bit largely.

There was an enormous pause while they waited to see what he would do.

Cuthbert and Ronald Martin were near, aimlessly handing trifle and fruit salad. Mr. Meredith helped with one hand to pa.s.s a cup.

"You know, Leighton," he said, "I have a great friend, he was one of your year--Vincent Hope--do you remember him?"

Cuthbert stared. One mouthful was gone and Mr. Meredith was cheerfully gulping another.

"What a digestion the man has," he thought, and next was plunged politely in reminiscent conversation regarding his College days.

Mabel sat crunching quite happily at the despised walnut cake.

Lance approached her timidly.

"For Heaven's sake," he said, "give me a large cup of coffee for the ostrich. The man will die if he isn't helped."

"Who on earth do you mean, Lance?" asked Mabel innocently.

"Meredith. Don't you see he has eaten the cake."

Mabel looked conscience-stricken. Her own slice had not dwindled much.

"It is rather chucky-stoney, isn't it?" she asked anxiously.

"It's terrific," said Lance sagely.

Mabel looked quite crushed for a moment, so crushed that even Lance's mischievous heart relented.

"Never mind, Mabel," he comforted her. "If Meredith can do that much for you without a shudder, he will do anything. It's a splendid test."

A golden maxim of Mrs. Leighton's flashed into Mabel's mind, "You never know a man till he has been tried." It made her smile to think that already they might be supposed to be getting to know Mr. Meredith because of her villainous cake.

"The piece we tested wasn't so bad," she explained to Lance, quite forgetting that she had skimmed that quant.i.ty in order to get plenty of chopped walnuts into the "real" cake.

A few people in the room seemed fearfully amused, and poor Mabel in an undefined manner began to feel decidedly out of it. Lance went about like a conspirator, commenting on the appearance of "the ostrich." He approached Cuthbert, asking him in an anxious manner how long the signs of rapid poisoning might be expected to take to declare themselves after a quadruple dose of walnut cake. Mr. Meredith unruffled, still handed about cups for Mabel.

Jean was in a corner with her dearest friend Maud Hartley.

"Isn't it wonderful what love can do?" she remarked quite seriously. It was a curious thing that Elma, who dreamed silly dreams about far-away things, and was despised for this accordingly by the robust Jean, did not become romantic over Mr. Meredith at all. She merely thought that he must be fearfully fond of walnuts.

The supper was hardly a pleasure to her--or to Betty. Every dish was an anxiety. They could almost count the plates for the different courses in their desire to know whether each had been successfully disposed of.

There was no doubt about the trifle.

"What a pity Mabel didn't make it," sighed Jean. After all, Mabel had only inspired the chicken salad, and even there Dr. Harry had made the mayonnaise.

"It isn't much of a start for her with Mr. Meredith," she sighed dismally, "if only we hadn't told anybody which was which."