“But it seems so unnecessary! And think what it would cost.”
This was a false step. Some of the reverence left Mrs Peagrim’s voice, and she spoke a little coldly. A gay and gallant spender herself, she had often had occasion to rebuke a tendency to over-parsimony in her nephew.
“We must not be mean, Otie!” she said.
Mr Pilkington keenly resented her choice of pronouns. “We” indeed! Who was going to foot the bill? Both of them, hand in hand, or he alone, the chump, the boob, the easy mark who got this sort of thing wished on him!
“I don’t think it would be possible to get the stage for a supper-party,” he pleaded, shifting his ground. “Goble wouldn’t give it to us.”
“As if Mr Goble would refuse you anything after you have written a wonderful success for his theatre! And isn’t he getting his share of the profits? Directly after the performance, you must go round and ask him. Of course he will be delighted to give you the stage. I will be hostess,” said Mrs. Peagrim radiantly. “And now, let me see, whom shall we invite?”
Mr Pilkington stared gloomily at the floor, too bowed down now by his weight of cares to resent the “we,” which had plainly come to stay. He was trying to estimate the size of the gash which this preposterous entertainment would cleave in the Pilkington bank-roll. He doubted if it was possible to go through with it under five hundred dollars; and, if, as seemed only too probable, Mrs Peagrim took the matter in hand and gave herself her head, it might get into four figures.
“Major Selby, of course,” said Mrs Peagrim musingly, with a cooing note in her voice. Long since had that polished man of affairs made a deep impression upon her. “Of course Major Selby, for one. And Mr Rooke. Then there are one or two of my friends who would be hurt if they were left out. How about Mr Mason? Isn’t he a friend of yours?”
Mr Pilkington snorted. He had endured much and was prepared to endure more, but he drew the line at squandering his money on the man who had sneaked up behind his brain-child with a hatchet and chopped its precious person into little bits.
“He is not a friend of mine,” he said stiffly, “and I do not wish him to be invited!”