"There's plenty of time, isn't there?" said Clare.
"No, there isn't," said Herbert. "You know some of the guests will arrive before eight o'clock."
"Besides," said Herbert, "I want you to look your best to-night. Edward Hargreaves is coming, with his wife."
"Everything," said Herbert. "He is second cousin to one of my directors. It is essential that you should make a good impression."
"You told me once that he was a complete ass," said Clare.
"Well, then," said Clare, quietly but firmly, "I decline to make a good impression on him."
"I must ask you to obey my wishes," said Herbert.
"I have obeyed you for seven years. It is now the Eighth Year."
Herbert did not hear his wife's remark. He was looking round the room with an air of extreme annoyance.
"What's the matter, dear?" asked Mrs. Hey-wood anxiously.
"You haven't even taken the trouble to buy some flowers," said Herbert.
"I left that to Clare," said the old lady.
"No," said Clare. "I can't bear flowers in this room. They droop so quickly."
"I insist upon having some flowers. The place looks like a barn without them. What will our visitors say?"
"Stupid things, as usual," said Clare quietly.
"I must go out and get some myself, I suppose," said Herbert, with the air of a martyr.
"Can't you send Mollie, dear?" asked Mrs. Heywood.
"Mollie is cutting sandwiches. The girl is overwhelmed with work. And--Oh, my stars!"
His mother was alarmed by this sudden cry of dismay.
"Clare," said Herbert, appealing to his wife, "there's not a drop of whisky left."
"Well, _I_ didn't drink it," said Clare. "You finished it the other night with one of your club friends."
"Don't be irritable, dear," said Mrs. Heywood.
"Irritable! Isn't it enough to make a saint irritable? These things always happen on our At Home nights. Nobody seems to have any forethought. Every blessed thing seems to go wrong."
"That is why I wish one could abolish the institution," said Clare.
"Don't talk rubbish, Clare," said Herbert angrily; "you know I have them for _your_ sake."
Clare laughed bitterly, as though she had heard a rather painful joke.
Herbert was distracted by a new cause of grievance as a tremendous puff of smoke came out of the fire-grate.
"What in the name of a thousand devils----"