“There is just one hope. It occurred to me as I was——”
“You don’t mean that Aunt Elizabeth has changed her mind?”
“She hasn’t yet. But,” said Ukridge, grimly, “she’s pretty soon going to, unless we move with the utmost despatch.”
“But what has happened?”
Ukridge shed the parcels. The action seemed to make him calmer.
“We had just come out of Harrod’s,” he said, “and I was about to leg it home with these parcels, when she sprang it on me! Right out of a blue sky!”
“What, Stanley, dear? Sprang what?”
“This ghastly thing. This frightful news that she proposes to attend the dinner of the Pen and Ink Club on Friday night. I saw her talking to a pug-nosed female we met in the fruit, vegetable, birds, and pet dogs department, but I never guessed what they were talking about. She was inviting the old lady to that infernal dinner!”
“But, Stanley, why shouldn’t Aunt Elizabeth go to the Pen and Ink Club dinner?”
“Because my aunt is coming up to town on Friday specially to speak at that dinner, and your aunt is going to make a point of introducing herself and having a long chat about me.”