"I don't know. I have an idea that secrets are the staple of tea-table talk in a village."
"Poor village! for how much it has to bear the blame; and yet people are worse gossips in Mayfair and Belgravia."
"Only because they have more to talk about."
Allan had arranged a luncheon-party for the following day. His courage had failed at the idea of a dinner: the lengthy ceremonial, the fear of failure if he demanded too much of his cook, the long blank space after dinner, with its possibility of ennui. Luncheon was a friendlier meal, and would less heavily tax the resources of a bachelor's establishment; and then there was the chance of being able to wander about the garden with Suzette in the afternoon, the hope of keeping her and her father till teatime, when the other people had gone home; though people do not disperse so speedily after a country luncheon as in town, and it might be that everybody would stop to tea. No matter, if he could steal away with Suzette to look at the single dahlias, in the west garden, fenced off from the lawn by a high laurel hedge, leaving Lady Emily and Mrs. Mornington to entertain his guests.
He had asked Mr. and Mrs. Mornington, General Vincent and his daughter, Mr. Edgefield, the Vicar, and his daughter Bessie (Suzette's antagonist at golf), Mr. and Mrs. Roebuck, a youngish couple, who prided themselves on being essentially of the great world, towny, cosmopolitan, anything but rustic, and who insisted on talking exclusively of London and the Riviera to people who rarely left their native gardens and paddocks. Mr. Roebuck had been officiously civil to Allan, and he had felt constrained to invite him. The invitation was on Mrs. Mornington's principle of payment for value received.
Allan had invited Mrs. Wornock; he had even pressed her to be of the party, but she had refused.
"I don't care for society," she said. "I am out of my element among smart people."
"There will be very little smartness—only the Roebucks, and one may say of them as Beatrice said of Benedick, 'It is a wonder they will still be talking, for nobody minds them.' Seriously now, Mrs. Wornock, I should like you to meet my father."
"You are very kind, but you must excuse me. Don't think me rude or ungrateful."