that father and mother of your husband’s? Whatever are you doing?”
“I’m tidying up my cupboard.”
“You’d do better to go for a walk: you’re looking so pale.”
“But I’m perfectly well.”
“I’ve come to ask if you’ll come to dinner at my house the day after to-morrow. But you must make yourself smart. We shall be fourteen. My first dinner-party. It’s a summer dinner. But we know such an awful lot of people; and I always begin my dinners very early. You see, it’s quite plain, at my place, but jolly. Bertha doesn’t begin till January; but she works everything out so closely. I like doing things handsomely. So it’s settled, isn’t it: you’ll come?”
“I’m sorry, Adolphine. It’s very nice of you to ask me, but I can’t come.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know your friends. And I don’t care about going out.”
“Oh!” said Adolphine, nettled. “I suppose my friends are not smart enough for you? I can tell you, I have the Hijdrechts coming and the Erkenbouts and the . . .”
“I’m not saying anything about your friends, but I don’t care for dinner-parties.”
“And you give them yourself!”
“I?”
“Yes, as I saw for myself not so long ago.”
