Chapter 5

But when the steward’s room was full of guests, and the table had been extended by the addition of several leaves, no indications of any schism were allowed to appear. Mrs. Wickenden and Mr. Vigeon, presiding at opposite ends of the table, were held to be models of their profession. They treated one another with immense ceremony, so that a foreigner, unversed in the ways of English service after the grand manner, might well have refused to believe that they had lived side by side for five-and-twenty years in the sa…