"The thing is already on the wane," said young Orson Vane, making a wryface over the entree, and sniffing at his glass, "and, if you ask me, Ithink the general digestion of society will be the better for it."
"Yes, there is nothing, after all, so tedious as the sham variety of atable d'hote. Though it certainly wasn't the fare one came to this holefor."
Luke Moncreith turned his eyes, as he said that, over the place they satin, smiling at it with somewhat melancholy contempt. Its sanded floor,its boisterously exposed wine-barrels, the meaningless vivacity of itsHungarian orchestra, evidently stirred him no more.
"No; that was the last detail. It was the notion of dining below stairs,as the servants do. It had, for a time, the charm of an imitation.Nothing is so delightful as to imitate others; yet to be mistaken forthem is always dreadful. Of course, nobody would mistake us here forservants."
The company, motley as it was, could not logically have come under anysuch suspicion. Though it was dining in a cellar, on a sanded floor,amid externals that were illegitimate offsprings of a Studenten Kneipeand a crew of Christy minstrels, it still had, in the main, the air ofbeing recruited from the smart world. At every other table there werepeople whom not to know was to argue oneself unknown. These personsobviously treated the place, and their being there, as an elaborateeffort at gaiety; the others, the people who were plainly there for thefirst time, took it with the bewildered manner of those whom each newexperience leaves mentally exhausted. The touch of rusticity, here andthere, did not suffice to spoil the sartorial sparkle of the smartmajority. The champagne that the sophisticated were wise enough tooppose to the Magyar vintages sparkled into veins that ran beautifullyblue under skin that held curves the most aristocratic, tints the mostshell-like. Tinkling laughter, vocative of insincerity, rang between therestless passion of the violins.
"When it is not below stairs," continued Vane, "it is up on the roof.One might think we were a society without houses of our own. It is, Isuppose, the human craving for opposites. When we have stored oursideboards with the finest glass you can get in Vienna or Carlsbad, weturn our backs on it and go to drinking from pewter in a cellar. We payabominable wages to have servants who shall be noiseless, and then go toplaces where the service is as guttural as a wilderness of monkeys.Fortunately, these fancies do not last. Presently, I dare say, it willbe the fashion to dine at home. That will make us feel quite like theoriginal Puritans." He laughed, and took his glass of wine at a gulp."The fact of the matter is that variety has become the vice of life. Wehave not, as a society, any inner steadfastness of soul; we depend uponexternals, and the externals pall with fearful speed. Think of seeing inthe mirror the face of the same butler for more than thirty days!" Heshuddered and shook his head.
"We are a restless lot," sighed the other, "but why discompose yourselfabout it? Thank your stars you have nothing more important to worryover!"
"My dear Luke, there is nothing more important than the attitude ofsociety at large. It is the only thing one should allow oneself todiscuss. To consider one's individual life is to be guilty of as badform as to wear anything that is conspicuous. Society admires us chieflyonly as we sink ourselves in it. If we let the note of personality rise,our social position is sure to su