"Wot, a dinner-party?" said Rose (she was trying not to cry).
"No, not a party. Only six."
"Six," said Rose, "is a dinner-party."
"Twenty-six might be."
Rose sat down and looked at him and said, "Oh dear, oh dear." But she had begun to smooth her hair in a kind of anticipation.
Then Tanqueray stooped and put his arm around her and kissed her and said it was his birthday. He always did ask people to dine on his birthday. There would only be the Brodricks and Nicky and Nina Lempriere and Laura Gunning—No, Laura Gunning couldn't come. That, with themselves, made six.
"Well——" said Rose placidly.
"I can take them to a restaurant if you'd rather. But I thought it would be so nice to have them in our own house. When it's my birthday."
She smiled. She was taking it all in. In her eyes, for once, he was like a child, with his birthday and his party. How could she refuse him anything on his birthday? And all through the removal he had been so good.
Already she was measuring spaces with her eye.