216
FLAMING
YOUTH
the severer problems. She is so uneven. Too much background and no foreground; the background of tradition, habit, breeding, les convenances (which she recklessly overrides yet always with a sense of what they imply), the divine right of being what she is, a Fentriss, and the lack of what should fill in, training, achievement, disci-
pline, purpose, any real underlying interest in life. Cary Scott was, I believe, giving her something along that line; the more reason for regretting his defection. ... Pat declares that she will keep a vacant place for him at the family dinner party which she is projecting for next week,” The dinner party was designed by Pat, to convince the Fentrisses, one and all, of her competence to run the house. ‘“Mid-Victorian stuff,’ Fred Browning called it, but he announced himself as for it, as did also Dee James,
while her husband was graciously acquiescent. Ralph Fentriss was humorously obedient to any whim of his youngest daughter’s, while Connie was delighted with the idea.
Osterhout
was
of course included,
as was
Linda
Fentriss, bird of passage between winter sports in the Adirondacks and a yachting trip in Florida waters. The gastronomic part of the dinner was a marked success, aided by a contribution of three bottles of champagne from the private and dwindling cellar of the head of the family. He summed up the verdict after his second glass in a toast proposed and responded to by himself: “We Fentrisses! We’re a damned sight better company for ourselves than most of the people we associate with.” To which satisfying sentiment there was emphatic response, participated in by Robert Osterhout. It struck him, however, that if there were any exception on this occasion, it was the second daughter, who alternated
