"Hospitality, yes; but isn't there a difference between that and entertaining?"
"If so, what is it?"
"I'm not sure that I can say. Isn't the one a permanent necessity, and the other merely a custom that can go out of date?"
"Between your custom that can go out of date and your permanent necessity, I don't see that there's much distinction."
"Well, there is, mother dear. It's like this: Entertaining is giving people something they don't particularly want and which you expect them to repay; while hospitality is opening your house to people in need, whether they can repay you or not."
"Oh, if we're going to open our houses to people in need—"
"Well, what?"
"I'm sure I don't know what; nor you, either."
"And that's just it. We're halting between two states of mind. Ever since the war began, mere entertaining bores us; and we're terrified at the idea of genuine hospitality; so there we are. We still give dinners and go to them; but when we do we feel it's something fatuous, which can't help making us dull."
Out of the silence that ensued Collingham said, moodily: