It was uncommonly nice of your Uncle
Peter to give it to you."
"And of you to design a dress to set it off," returned she, smiling
with pleasure. "I am glad you like me in it."
"You are stunning," her husband repeated, kissing her with a faint
shade of patronage in his manner. "Now come on before the dinner is as
cold as a stone. A cold dinner is like a warmed-over love affair; you
accept it from a sense of duty, but there is no enjoyment in it."
Mrs. Fenton smiled, more from pleasure at his evident good nature than
from any especial amusement, and they went together into the pretty
dining-room.
Fenton acknowledged himself fond of the refinements of life, and his
sensitive, sensuous nature lost none of the delights of a well-
appointed home. He lived in a quiet and elegant luxury which would have
been beyond the attainment of most artists, and which indeed not
infrequently taxed his resources to the utmost.
The table at which the pair sat down was laid with exquisite damask and
china, the dinner admirable and well served. The dishes came in hot,
the maid was deft and comely in appearance, and the master of the
house, who always kept watch, in a sort of involuntary self-
consciousness, of all that went on about him, was pleasantly aware that
the most fastidious of his friends could have found nothing amiss in
the appointment or the service of his table.
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