Dinner was to be eaten at the house of Finwë's son Fëanáro. As everybody assembled in the atrium for the short walk, Ilmarien was pleased to discover that Calatindil would be of the party, since she had changed for the occasion into one of her more impressive gowns, a gorgeous thing of trembling golden gauze, bestowed upon her by Malwë. She immediately noticed that Indis and Findis were dressed extremely characteristically, in pure white and a dark brown respectively. Findis' dress might have looked shabby if it had not been so beautifully cut out of such expensive cloth.
Fëanáro and Nerdanel were ready to welcome their guests on the patio. Ilmarien was full of admiration for the house, the garden, Nerdanel's dress and her 400-Day-old son, a bouncing blond baby boy who revelled in the name of Tyelkormo. The second son, Kanafinwë Makalaurë, was also present, a skinny, bright-eyed twenty-four-Year-old with whom Ilmarien was delighted, telling him that she had a nephew just his age.
There was no sign of Maitimo, until Nerdanel led the company over to a trestle table which had been set up in the shade of a gnarled apple tree in the enclosed garden. Gesturing to Ilmarien to take a seat, she peered up into the leafy mass of the tree, clapping her hands.
"Ion, we know you're up there! Come down and meet the Lady Ilmarien!"
Laughing, Maitimo slid down the trunk of the apple-tree. He had grown into a very tall, very handsome youth, possessed of a gleaming crop of very white teeth. The reddish glint in his hair had become more noticeable with age.
Nerdanel resumed her attentions to the tree:
"You too, Findekáno! What would your parents think of your manners?"
A second boy descended to terra firma. This one was not quite so impressive: black-haired, not particularly tall for his age, the sort of young person whom one might easily pass on the street. He was Findekáno, the only child of Nolofinwë and Anairë, a close friend of Maitimo and a regular guest of Fëanáro and Nerdanel.
His aunt often joked that he spent more time in their house than his own. This she explained to Ilmarien, whom she knew only very slightly, being foolish enough to imagine that she was in need of being drawn into the conversation, when, of course, she was actually only doing justice to the first course.
"Ah! Youth," Ilmarien responded, "a time of rejecting the certainties of childhood, when we imagine ourselves superior to the restrictions of our elders and betters. Young people are terribly ungrateful, don't you think? They never consider that their parents might have accumulated any wisdom with age, for example. On the other hand, I myself have always been ready to take my mother's advice, especially on clothing, even during the so troubled Years of adolescence. You see, I have a natural talent for recognising the best, and Amil's taste is incomparable."
Here Ilmarien paused to take a breath. All the time that she was uttering this stream of mostly harmless platitudes, she was watching Findis and Calatindil from beneath her fine and silvery eyelashes.
The conversation between these two was carried entirely by Calatindil. Findis appeared to find his every remark foolish, irritating and unnecessary, answering them in monosyllables, though some were rather subtle and beautiful compliments. Just now, he was cutting meat off the bone for her. She did not so much submit docilely to this attention as, her eyes set on a corner of the house, give the impression that she had no idea of her suitor's presence.
"What a beautiful goblet!" Ilmarien cried ecstatically. "Did your husband make it, Nerdanel dear? Yes? And these statues around the pond? Oh, they are your work? What a gifted family you are, to be sure! I do wish I could make such lovely things, but I suppose I must reconcile myself to being a useless burden on society!"
Nerdanel smiled vaguely. To her surprise, she found that she was rather enjoying this method of converse, wholly alien though it was to her own nature. In general, she spoke little and only to the point. Her acquaintances knew that she meant what she said. This other thing, this polite exchange of hot air by which nothing was challenged or revealed, was more like a game to her than a serious conversation. There was something curiously relaxing about it.
