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20 to accept, or obliged to decline. The argument in favour of being obliged to decline was obvious: Mrs. Poppit deserved to be “served out” for not including her among the original guests, and if she declined it was quite probable that at this late hour her hostess might not be able to get anyone else, and so one of her tables would be completely spoiled. In favour of accepting was the fact that she would get a rubber of bridge and a good tea, and would be able to say something disagreeable about the red-currant fool, which would serve Miss Poppit out for attempting to crib her ancestral dishes.…

A bright, a joyous, a diabolical idea struck her, and she went herself to the telephone, and genteelly wiped the place where Withers had probably breathed on it.

“So kind of you, Isabel,” she said, “but I am very busy to-day, and you didn’t give me much notice, did you? So I’ll try to look in if I can, shall I? I might be able to squeeze it in.”

There was a pause, and Miss Mapp knew that she had put Isabel in a hole. If she successfully tried to get somebody else, Miss Mapp might find she could squeeze it in, and there would be nine. If she failed to get someone else, and Miss Mapp couldn’t squeeze it in, then there would be seven…. Isabel wouldn’t have a tranquil moment all day.

“Ah, do squeeze it in,” she said in those horrid wheedling tones which for some reason Major Flint found so attractive. That was one of the weak points about him, and there were many, many others. But that was among those which Miss Mapp found it difficult to condone.

“If I possibly can,” said Miss Mapp. “But at this late hour&#8203;—&#8203;Good-bye, dear, or only au reservoir, we hope.”

She heard Isabel’s polite laugh at this nearly new and