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222 and I wondered a little uncomfortably when Edith would light the fuse. Edith is wonderful in some ways, as you know. At a hotel or on a steamer she catches on to the right people to know within the first twenty-four hours, and by the third day she's playing bridge with them. As soon as ever her half-dozen pieces of baggage had arrived, she donned a Paquin three-piece velvet suit and set out to call on Mrs. Percival. That night the explosion took place.

"I called on Mrs. Percival this afternoon," she began after dinner. "She says, Lucy, that you never returned her call."

Will had gone to a lecture that evening. Ruth was playing solitaire in front of the fire.

"Has Mrs. Percival called on me? I didn't realise it," I replied.

"Not only has Mrs. Percival called, but every one else who should. That impossible servant of yours said that all these people had called." Edith took down the brass jardinière where I deposit all my visiting-cards. "She said that you were never in afternoons and had not seen one of them. Where under the heavens were you, Lucy?"

I felt ashamed to tell Edith about the lectures, so I said instead:

"Oh, anywhere—walking, shopping—anywhere. I never stay in afternoons. I can't bear to."

"How many of those calls have you returned?" cross-examined my sister-in-law.

"Well—I am going to return them all," I began. "They're such strangers to me that I've been putting it off. You know how I hate making calls anyway. But of course—"