“Naturally. A deplorable woman like that. I’m afraid even that precaution does not prevent the refusals.”
“No. But if she gets one acceptance in eight she considers she has done extremely well. And the poor woman is really improving. I have edited her list for her.”
“A pleasant task! But you are always so sweet.”
“It was a labour of Hercules; especially as one had never heard of quite two-thirds of the people; and when I enquired who in the world they were, the tiresome woman would hold a brief for the distressing unknowns.”
“She might have concluded,” observed Lady Rotherfield graciously, “that any one unknown to Mr. Dormer Greetland was not worth knowing.”
The arbiter of social pretension accepted the compliment as no more than his due. “Well, I had at last to act on that assumption,” he said acquiescently. “Arguing the value of various unknown quantities became fatiguing. It took me quite half-an-hour’s hard lecturing to make the absurd woman understand that a merely rich hostess, to be a success, must never receive any but her social superiors. Equals and inferiors in such a case give away the show at once.”
“Ah, yes,” Lady Rotherfield agreed, with a half sigh; “people of that sort cannot be too careful. Unfortunately they will not realize the fact that it is as much as we can do to tolerate them singly; in battalions they are utterly overpowering. Now, Mr. Greetland, about the poor Countess Alexia. Do you think one might venture?”
With a slightly obvious effort Greetland brought his mind back to the subject from which it had strayed. “Well,” he said judicially, “I think you might. You must chance their not having heard of your reception, with other things to occupy their minds. You might scribble an excuse for short notice; say you have had unheard-of difficulties with your fiddler.”
“Oh, thank you so much, dear Mr. Greetland; it is truly sweet of you. I’ll do that at once. Yes; these wretched fiddlers and their exasperating ways have their uses sometimes. I hope you are coming, Mr. Greetland?”
A cloud crossed the face which was to so many hostesses the social sun. “I am engaged a hundred deep for Tuesday,” he smiled protestingly, “but I’ll do my best. You might let me know, dear lady, if Tarbosch is really coming to play for you. I just missed him at Lady Llanthony’s the other night, and one must be able to say one has heard him.”