Returning to the moment at which you have made your entrance and been received and passed along, you gaze vaguely round you at the other guests, greeting those you know with exaggerated enthusiasm and being the conscious subject of whispered criticism and inquiry on the part of the others.  You make your way to the side of a lady whom you have previously encountered at a similar entertainment and assert your delight at revamping the fatuous acquaintanceship.  Her facetiousness is elephantine, but the relief of conversation is such that you laugh loudly at her witticisms and simper knowingly at her platitudes—­both of which have now been current for several months.

The edge of your delight is, however, somewhat dulled by the discovery that she is the lady whom fate has ordained that you shall take in to dinner—­a matter of which you were sublimely unconscious owing to the fact that you had entirely forgotten her name.  As the couples pair off to march to the dining room and the combinations of which you may form a possible part are reduced to a scattering two or three, you realize with a shudder that the lady beside you is none other than Mrs. Jones—­and that for the last ten minutes you have been recklessly using up the evening’s conversational ammunition.

With a sinking heart you proffer your arm, wondering whether it will be possible to get through the meal and preserve the fiction of interest.  You wish savagely that you could turn on her and exclaim honestly: 

“Look here, my good woman, you are all right enough in your own way, but we have nothing in common; and this proposed evening of enforced companionship will leave us both exhausted and ill-tempered.  We shall grin and shout meaningless phrases over the fish, entree and salad about life, death and the eternal verities; but we shall be sick to death of each other in ten minutes.  Let’s cut it out and go home!”

You are obliged, however, to escort your middle-aged comrade downstairs and take your seat beside her with a flourish, as if you were playing Rudolph to her Flavia.  Then for two hours, with your eyes blinded by candlelight and electricity, you eat recklessly as you grimace first over your left shoulder and then over your right.  It is a foregone conclusion that you will have a headache by the time you have turned, with a sensation of momentary relief, to your “fair companion” on the other side.

Have you enjoyed yourself?  Have you been entertained?  Have you profited?  The questions are utterly absurd.  You have suffered.  You have strained your eyes, overloaded your stomach, and wasted three hours during which you might have been recuperating from your day’s work or really amusing yourself with people you like.

This entirely conventional form of amusement is, I am told, quite unknown in Europe.  There are, to be sure, occasional formal banquets, which do not pretend to be anything but formal.  A formal banquet would be an intense relief, after the heat, noise, confusion and pseudo-informality of a New York dinner.  The European is puzzled and baffled by one of our combined talk-and-eating bouts.