"If this scheme really comes off," said Sir John, "I would suggest that the Marchesa should always be provided with a plate of her own up her sleeve—if I may use such an expression—so that any void in the menu, caused by failure on the part of the under-skilled or over-ambitious amateur, may be filled by what will certainly be a chef-d'oeuvre."
"I shall back up Mrs. Sinclair's proposition with all my power," said Mrs. Wilding. "The Canon will be in residence at Martlebridge for the next month, and I would much rather be learning cookery under the Marchesa than staying with my brother-in-law at Ealing."
"You'll have to do it, Marchesa," said Van der Roet; "when a new idea catches on like this, there's no resisting it."
"Well, I consent on one condition—that my rule shall be absolute," said the Marchesa, "and I begin my career as an autocrat by giving Mrs. Fothergill a list of the educational machinery I shall want, and commanding her to have them all ready by Tuesday morning, the day on which I declare the school open."
A chorus of applause went up as soon as the Marchesa ceased speaking.
"Everything shall be ready," said Mrs. Fothergill, radiant with delight that her offer had been accepted, "and I will put in a full staff of servants selected from our three other establishments."
"Would it not be as well to send the cook home for a holiday?" said the Colonel. "It might be safer, and lead to less broth being spoilt."
"It seems," said Sir John, "that we shall be ten in number, and I would therefore propose that, after an illustrious precedent, we limit our operations to ten days. Then if we each produce one culinary poem a day we shall, at the end of our time, have provided the world with a hundred new reasons for enjoying life, supposing, of course, that we have no failures. I propose, therefore, that our society be called the 'New Decameron.'"
"Most appropriate," said Miss Macdonnell, "especially as it owes its origin to an outbreak of plague—the plague in the kitchen."