"That's meant for me, I suppose? If I were you, Mary, I should keep a check on my tongue. A sharp tongue doesn't add to a woman's charm. Where did you pick this fellow up?"
"I told you. He used to visit us at King's Gate before we were married."
"I don't see why we should have all your grandmother's foreign friends and acquaintances foisted on us for the rest of our lives," Jemmie grumbled. "And I wish you'd answer my question. Where did you meet him again?"
"At a lecture on Madagascar to which I took my girls."
Jemmie threw up his eyebrows to express compassion for human folly.
"You'll be bringing Barnum and Bailey back to dinner next," he prophesied. "Or one of the keepers at the Zoo. I don't want this house filled with showmen and cranks. I knew what it would be when you started that club of yours. I should have thought three children was enough for any woman. But go your own way. Don't let anything I say interfere with your pleasures. From what I can see of it the women will be ruling the men before long."
Mary let her husband grumble on for a while. Then she suggested a few names for a dinner-party.
"I don't want a dinner-party," he declared angrily. "I'm terribly overworked just now, and I like to rest whenever I can. You know how late I've been kept every day this week at the office. We get quite enough dinner-parties that we have to give and go to without letting ourselves in for any more than are necessary."
"Very well then," said Mary, "I'll ask nobody else."