Eleanor

Eleanor emerges as an observant, energetic hostess whose social ease has a sharper edge: she reads the feelings others try to hide, manages an awkward gathering through wit and insistence, and recognizes Dick’s distress even when he tries to appear hard. Her importance lies less in any stated history than in what she does in the room—collecting, noticing, teasing, and keeping people together as the evening grows uncomfortable.

Identity and Setting

The scene places Eleanor in a room overlooking the quay, with the apse of Notre-Dame de Paris visible in the late-afternoon light and drays carrying wine barrels rumbling outside. She moves about collecting the tea things for the maid, then later handles a bottle of champagne. These practical gestures establish her as the gathering’s active organizer: while the men discuss work and politics, she attends to the room and its guests.

The company has assembled around Eveline and her husband, Paul Johnson. Eleanor explains that she had to do something for them before they sailed, because Eveline is one of her oldest friends, and that she invited Eveline’s wide-eyed hangers-on afterward. Dick, who expects to leave for J.W. Moorehouse’s meeting with the press, agrees to stay and greet the couple. Eleanor’s invitation has brought together old friendship, a departing pair, and a circle of acquaintances whose presence will make the evening increasingly tense.

Reading Dick and Eveline

Eleanor’s view of Eveline’s marriage is direct: she calls it a very grave mistake and criticizes Americans for being frivolous about marriage. The judgment is not merely a general opinion. When she asks Dick whether he was in love with Eveline, his throat tightens; he notices the stiffness of his hand as he raises his cigarette, keeps his face rigid, and says nothing. Eleanor has put a name to the feeling he is trying to conceal. Dick blushes and shakes his head when she asks him outright, but the bodily hesitation makes his denial less convincing than his attempt at composure.

Her response is teasing rather than prosecutorial. She tells him he need not pretend to be hard about it, treating his guarded manner as a young man’s pose rather than accepting it as the truth. The exchange reveals Eleanor as a close enough observer to notice not only Dick’s answer but the effort behind it. She draws him out without forcing a confession; his unspoken reaction remains visible, and her attention gives that silence weight.

Keeping the Gathering Together

As the evening continues, Eleanor mediates between discomfort and sociability. When Dick complains under his breath that he hates people who take pleasure in making others uncomfortable, she answers that she feels the same way. Her quick smile and pat on his arm make the agreement personal and reassuring. But when Dick says he has a headache and wants to go home, she grips his arm, pulls him into the hall, and tells him not to leave her alone with the frost. She then brings him back to the salon and pours him champagne, urging him to cheer Eveline, who, she whispers, is about ready to go down for the third time.

The moment captures the double character of Eleanor’s hospitality. She is attentive to Dick’s wish to withdraw, but she does not simply let him go; she recruits him to help sustain the gathering. Her whispered remark acknowledges Eveline’s visible misery without turning it into a public confrontation. Eleanor uses private humor and physical insistence to keep the evening moving, even as its guests begin to expose their resentments.

Conflict and Narrative Role

That skill is tested when Don Stevens makes ugly remarks about parasites and the bourgeoisie, then argues with Dick about the Peace Conference and calls him a slur. Eleanor has earlier interrupted Stevens with a fresh bottle of champagne, a small intervention that returns attention to the party without resolving the hostility. After the Johnsons hustle Stevens out, she puts an arm around Dick’s neck and tells him he has been magnificent. Her praise affirms him after a scene in which political argument has turned into personal insult.

Eleanor therefore functions as more than the gathering’s organizer. She observes the emotional fault lines around Eveline’s marriage, recognizes Dick’s attachment beneath his denial, and alternates between humor, care, and firm social management as the company comes apart. Yet her interventions do not erase the underlying strain: she can bring Dick back into the salon and praise him afterward, but she cannot make the guests’ discomfort disappear. The scene’s view of her is built through these acts of mediation—warm enough to reassure, perceptive enough to expose, and practical enough to keep the evening going.