Mrs. Ames Read Free Page A

his errand.
    Criticism of Mrs Ames’ action, based on the hypothesis that the news was true, was sufficient to afford brisk conversation until the return of the messenger, and Mrs Altham put back on her plate her first stick of asparagus and tore the note open. A glance was sufficient.
    â€˜It is all quite true,’ she said. ‘Mrs Ames writes, “We are so sorry to be obliged to refuse your kind invitation, but General Fortescue and Millicent Evans, with a few other friends, are dining with us this evening.” Well, I am sure! So, after all, Mrs Taverner was right. I feel I owe her an apology for doubting the truth of it, and I shall slip round after lunch to tell her that she need not call on Mrs Ames, which she was thinking of doing. I can save her that trouble.’
    Mr Altham considered and condemned the wisdom of this slipping round.
    â€˜That might land you in an unpleasantness, my dear,’ he said. ‘Mrs Taverner might ask you how you were certain of it. You would not like to say that you asked the Ames’ to dinner on the same night in order to find out.’
    â€˜No, that is true. You see things very quickly, Henry. But, on the other hand, if Mrs Taverner does go to call, Mrs Ames might let drop the fact that she had received this invitation from us. I would sooner let Mrs Taverner know it myself than let it get to her in roundabout ways. I will think over it; I have no doubt I shall be able to devise something. Now about Mrs Ames’ new departure. I must say that it seems to me a very queer piece of work. If she is to ask you without me, and me without you, is the other to sit at home alone for dinner? For it is not to be expected that somebody else will on the very same night always ask theother of us. As likely as not, if there is another invitation for the same night, it will be for both of us, for I do not suppose that we shall all follow Mrs Ames’ example, and model our hospitalities on hers.’
    Mrs Altham paused a moment to eat her asparagus, which was getting cold.
    â€˜As a matter of fact, my dear, we do usually follow Mrs Ames’ example,’ he said. ‘She may be said to be the leader of our society here.’
    â€˜And if you gave me a hundred guesses why we do follow her example,’ said Mrs Altham rather excitedly, picking up a head of asparagus that had fallen on her napkin, ‘I am sure I could not give you one answer that you would think sensible. There are a dozen of our friends in Riseborough who are just as well born as she is, and as many more much better off; not that I say that money should have anything to do with position, though you know as well as I do that you could buy their house over their heads, Henry, and afford to keep it empty, while, all the time, I, for one, don’t believe that they have got three hundred a year between them over and above his pay. And as for breeding, if Mrs Ames’ manners seem to you so worthy of copy, I can’t understand what it is you find to admire in them, except that she walks into a room as if it all belonged to her, and looks over everybody’s head, which is very ridiculous, as she can’t be more than two inches over five feet, and I doubt if she’s as much. I never have been able to see, and I do not suppose I ever shall be able to see, why none of us can do anything in Riseborough without asking Mrs Ames’ leave. Perhaps it is my stupidity, though I do not know that I am more stupid than most.’
    Henry Altham felt himself to blame for this agitated harangue. It was careless of him to have alluded to Mrs Ames’leadership, for if there was a subject in this world that produced a species of frenzy and a complete absence of full stops in his wife, it was that. Desperately before now had she attempted to wrest the sceptre from Mrs Ames’ podgy little hands, and to knock the crown off her noticeably small head. She had given parties that were positively