"Nonsense!" she said. "We can't do it."
"Count up," said I.
I lit a cigar and went out into the winter-stricken garden, and left her reckoning on her fingers, with knitted brow. When I returned she greeted me with a radiantly superior smile.
"Who said it couldn't be done? I do wish men had some kind of practical sense. It's as easy as anything."
She unfolded her scheme. As far as my dazed wits could grasp it, I understood that I should give up my dressing-room, that the maids should sleep eight in a bed, that Franklin, our excellent butler, should perch in a walnut-tree and that planks should be put up in the bath-rooms for as many more guests as we cared to invite.
"That is excellent," said I, "but do you realise that in this house party there are only three grown men—three ha'porth of grown men" (I couldn't forbear allusiveness) "to this intolerable quantity of women and children?"
"But who is preventing you from asking men, dear? Who are they?"
I mentioned my old friend Vansittart; also poor John Costello's son, who would most likely be at a loose end at Christmas, and one or two others.
"Well have them, dear," said Barbara.
So four unattached men were added to the party. That made nineteen. When I thought of their accommodation my brain reeled. In order to retain my wits I gave up thinking of it, and left the matter to Barbara.