“I daresay. Anyhow, after that, soup.”
“Can’t stand soup,” remarked Louisa. “There’s no stay in soup. Go on, Erb.”
“Now comes what I may term,” said Erb, “the gist or point of this anecdote. The lady with the shoulders next to me—”
“I should faint if I found myself going out like that,” declared Louisa, interrupting again. “How anyone can do it beats me. It’s like being caught in your disables.”
“The lady with the shoulders next to me turned and asked me something that I didn’t exactly catch, and I turned round rather suddenly and said, ‘Beg pardon?’ Knocked the arm of the girl who was serving the fish, and as near upset the plate that she held in her hand as didn’t matter. I jumps up, and then for the first time I recognised it was Alice.”
“Wasn’t she took aback?”
“Not half so much as I was,” said Erb. “I suppose being rather a large dinner party they’d laid her on extra. Of course, I shook hands with her and said, ‘Hullo, Alice, how’s the world using you?’”
“Well, you are,” said Louisa with horror, “absolutely the biggest juggins I ever come across.”
“But what was I to do?”
“Do?” echoed the short sister. “Do? I could have soon shown you what to do. All you’d got to do was to take no notice of her. Ignore her! Look past her! Pretend she wasn’t there! You’ll never get asked again, that’s a very sure thing.”