For an instant she frowned, then she gurgled again.
"Brenda Thornton told you that," she protested. "It's just her jealousy. As a fact I'm quite good at getting only the right people. Fliers have rather had their day, though they are still useful, and I like an explorer or two for week-ends, though the best kind seems to be always exploring. But Brenda was getting ahead of me—I don't mind confessing that to you—until I thought of Bobbie Outram. He's my one stroke of genius; even David admits that."
"I never thought much of your husband's taste," I said brutally, and then, "in men," I added gently, as she was recovering from influenza.
She smiled again and continued:
"There is one thing that is indispensable to a successful week-end."
"It can't be Bobby Outram," I declared.
"It is, or somebody like him; but he is easily the best. Bobbie is my point of contact."
"He used often to be my boot's," I growled.
"The more you can fuse your guests the better," she went on, as if she were giving a lecture. "Everyone knows that; it's the A B C of entertaining; but they must have something to agree about—a sort of rallying point. And I was the first hostess to discover that no party is complete unless you have someone in it whom all the others can most cordially abuse."
"So that is Bobbie's métier?" I said.