He entered the dining room.

The whole company were standing between two windows at a small table laid with hors-d'oeuvres.

Speranski, wearing a gray swallow-tail coat with a star on the breast, and evidently still the same waistcoat and high white stock he had worn at the meeting of the Council of State, stood at the table with a beaming countenance.

His guests surrounded him.

Magnitski, addressing himself to Speranski, was relating an anecdote, and Speranski was laughing in advance at what Magnitski was going to say.