'Oh, is it? How would they ever have known her but for us?'

'How could they ask her without knowing her? Besides we went there last.
We lunched with them only the other day.'

'That's not the point. You have missed the point entirely. Unfortunately, you generally do. You have, in the most marked way, a woman's weakness, Edith. You're incapable of arguing logically. I consider it a downright slight; no, not so much a slight as an insult—perhaps injury is the mot juste—to take away our guest and not ask us. Not that I should have gone. I shouldn't have dreamed of going, in any case. For one thing we were there last; we lunched there only the other day. Besides, we're engaged to dine with my mother.'

'Mrs Mitchell knew that; that's why she asked Madame Frabelle because she would be alone.'

'Oh, how like you, Edith! Always miss the point—always stick up for everyone but me! You invariably take the other side. However, perhaps it is all for the best; it's just as well. Nothing would have induced me to have gone—even if I hadn't been engaged, I mean. I'm getting a bit tired of the Mitchells; sick of them. Their tone is frivolous. And if they'd pressed me ever so much, nothing in the world would have made me break my promise to my mother.'

'Well, then, it's all right. Why complain?'

Bruce continued, however, in deep depression till they received a message from the Mitchells, asking Edith if she and her husband couldn't manage to come, all the same, if they were not afraid of offending the elder Mrs Ottley. They could go to Bruce's mother at any time, and the Mitchells particularly wanted them to meet some people tomorrow night—a small party, unexpectedly got up.

'Of course you won't go,' said Edith to Bruce from the telephone. 'You said you wouldn't under any circumstances. I'll refuse, shall I?'

'No—no, don't! Certainly not! Of course I shall go. Accept immediately. They're quite right, it is perfectly true we can go to my mother any other day. Besides, I don't think it's quite fair to old friends like the Mitchells to throw them over when they particularly want us and ask us as a special favour to them, like this.'

'You don't think, perhaps, that somebody else has disappointed them, and they asked us at the last minute, to fill up?' suggested Edith, to whom this was perfectly obvious.