The dinner was a larger one than usual.

It came to Beatrice's turn very soon after their arrival, and Tavernake, squeezing his way a few steps into the dining-room, stood with the waiters against the wall.
He looked with curious eyes upon a scene with which he had no manner of sympathy.
A hundred or so of men had dined together in the cause of some charity.
The odor of their dinner, mingled with the more aromatic perfume of the tobacco smoke which was already ascending in little blue clouds from the various tables, hung about the over-heated room, seeming, indeed, the fitting atmosphere for the long rows of guests.

The majority of them were in a state of expansiveness.

Their faces were redder than when they had sat down; a certain stiffness had departed from their shirt-fronts and their manners; their faces were flushed, their eyes watery.

There were a few exceptions--paler-faced men who sat there with the air of endeavoring to bring themselves into accord with surroundings in which they had no real concern.