“Don’t be later than nine getting back here with them,” she said; “we don’t want them hanging around till all hours. Some of us have to get up in the morning if others don’t.”

This was enough to make Mr Leakey nervous all through the rehearsal, which began at half-past six, and to put him into a state of real apprehension from half-past eight onward. But when the cast arrived in a body at the Leakey home at half-past nine, who could have been a more gracious chatelaine than Mrs Leakey?

“I’m glad you came just in whatever you stood up in,” said she, taking in Griselda, who was in slacks, the Torso, who was in shorts, and Valentine, who wore a suit but the tail of whose blouse kept popping out. Mrs Leakey wore a creation of scratchy lace which showed off her large, strong collar bones to great advantage.

She had invited a few ladies of her acquaintance to help her in serving the refreshments. Some hostesses might have felt that this was a mistake, for these ladies knew nothing about the play, were not members of the Little Theatre, and wanted to talk about other things. Now a theatrical company, however ill-assorted or however amateur, is bound together by ties which are incomprehensible to outsiders. They want to talk about their play, or if they talk of other things, they are likely to talk about them in a manner which does not readily take in strangers. Even a determined hostess like Mrs Leakey may find herself bested by this exclusiveness. She decided to make small-talk with Solly on the one topic which seemed to interest him.

“I’ve been hearing Eric his lines,” said she, offering him a pickle; “I must say they don’t mean much to me.”

“Oh,” said Solly, who was tired and not in a mood to encourage this line of conversation.

“I think some of Shakespeare’s characters are awfully overdrawn,” said Mrs Leakey, firmly.

“Really?” said Solly, looking curiously into a sandwich.

“As a matter of fact, I’ve said to Eric that it seems to me that more people would like Shakespeare if he had written in prose.”

“Very likely.”

“Still, that’s just one person’s opinion.”

“Quite.”

The party took on a strongly Ontario character. That is to say, all the ladies gathered in the drawing room, and all the gentlemen gathered in a small room behind it, which Mr Leakey used as his “den”. In the dining-room, enthroned behind the silver service, one of Mrs Leakey’s female friends poured out coffee, and the other female friends came to the table from time to time to load up with fresh consignments of food. Roger wanted to talk to Griselda; Valentine wanted to talk to Solly; the Torso yearned in a generous and all-embracing fashion to be at the men. But the power of the hostess at such affairs is very great, and Mrs Leakey liked to run her parties on tried-and-true pioneer lines. So the sexes ate in decent segregation, and were so cowed that they obediently gobbled some of everything which was offered to them, regardless of how little they wanted it. And promptly at half-past ten the ladies rose, almost as one, and the guests departed.

“Well,” said Mrs Leakey; “thank Heaven they didn’t stay till all hours. Now we’d better get these dishes washed; I don’t want them staring at me when I come down in the morning. It’s been a hard day, but I don’t want it to stretch over into another.”

By midnight the Leakeys had washed everything and put it away, and were in bed, having shown themselves hospitable.

It was not long before Mrs Bridgetower, who had a knack of knowing what was going on even when she was most secluded and ailing, heard about this round of hospitality.

“You know how it grieves me not to be able to do my part,” she said to Solly. “When your Father was alive this house was a rendezvous—a regular rendezvous. But I simply couldn’t see so many people at once in my present condition. I might manage a few, but I couldn’t manage all.”

“Please don’t worry about it, Mother,” said he. “Nobody minds.”

“Oh, don’t they?” said his mother. “I didn’t know that I’d been forgotten quite so quickly. There was a time, I can tell you, when people looked to this house for hospitality. And you know, lovey, that there is nothing I like so much as to see your friends here.”

Solly had often been assured of this by his mother, but the evidence pointed in a different direction. What his mother liked was to see his friends come to the house, fail in some direction or other to measure up to the standard which she set for companions of her only son, and depart in disgrace. It was still remembered against one miserable youth that five years before he had crumbled a piece of cake on the drawing-room carpet, and had then nervously trodden in it and tracked it into the dining-room; Mrs Bridgetower could still point out exactly where his crumby spoor had lain. Solly hoped to let the matter drop, but his mother detected this and continued:

“Perhaps the best thing would be to have them in in small groups of three or four, one group each week, for tea. If you will give me a list of their names I shall make up the groups, and telephone them as their time comes.”

“I’m afraid they wouldn’t be able to come to tea, Mother,” said Solly; “most of these affairs are rather late in the evening.”

“Oh, I could never manage that; the anxiety of waiting all evening for them to come would be too much for me.”

“Of course it would, Mother. They understand.”

“Oh, so they’ve been discussing it, have they? Well, I don’t want them to understand anything that isn’t so. I am quite capable of offering hospitality on my own terms. When I was a girl and we got up any private theatricals, we usually made rehearsals an excuse for very charming little teas, and sometimes eggnogg parties.”

“I know Mother, but this is different. Much more professional in spirit.”

“Hmph, the world seems to be advancing in everything except amenity.”

“Would you be happy if I invited a few people in, just for a chat in my room, after a rehearsal, now and again? You wouldn’t need to bother with them then.”

“You could hardly invite girls to come here under those circumstances.”

“Of course not. Just a few of the men. And then we should have shown ourselves hospitable, and you wouldn’t have been troubled.”

“Well, perhaps so. I shall write a note to Mrs Forrester, explaining why I have not undertaken to entertain the group as a whole, and then you shall have the men in by twos and threes.”

Mrs Bridgetower wrote the note that same day, and at the next rehearsal Nellie said:

“Oh Solly, how sweet of your mother to write to me like that! I don’t know of anyone else in Salterton who would have done it. Really she’s wonderful! So hospitable, and so gracious. It must be a terrible hardship to her that she can’t entertain as she wants to! Of course we all understand. I’m sending her a little bouquet and a note from me and Val.”

It was not a happy inspiration which persuaded Solly to arrange the first of these masculine gatherings on a night when Miss Cora Fielding was also entertaining the company. The Fieldings were jolly people, and unlike Mrs Bridgetower they really liked to see their children’s friends in their house.

Not only was there chicken and ham and potato salad and olives and anchovies and fruit salad and several sorts of sweetmeats; there was also rather a lot of liquor, and as Mr Fielding was more hospitable than discreet the party, at the end of an hour was lively and noisy. At the end of the second hour, square dances were being performed in a room which was much too small for them, and Valentine had danced a hornpipe with great success. The party broke up at midnight; several people kissed Miss Cora Fielding goodnight, and everybody assured the older Fieldings in merry shouts that they had had a wonderful time.