"
Sir Nicholas was not so enthusiastic. "Are you quite sure, my dear, that
you're wise in doing this thing?" he said to his wife when they were
alone together. "It might do very well at the Mathesons, where they had
rather a staid, elderly house-party, but here it will be a different
matter. There is the Durmot flapper, for instance, who simply stops at
nothing, and you know what Van Tahn is like. Then there is Cyril
Skatterly; he has madness on one side of his family and a Hungarian
grandmother on the other."
"I don't see what they could do that would matter," said Lady Blonze.
"It's the unknown that is to be dreaded," said Sir Nicholas. "If
Skatterly took it into his head to represent a Bull of Bashan, well, I'd
rather not be here."
"Of course we shan't allow any Bible characters. Besides, I don't know
what the Bulls of Bashan really did that was so very dreadful; they just
came round and gaped, as far as I remember."
"My dear, you don't know what Skatterly's Hungarian imagination mightn't
read into the part; it would be small satisfaction to say to him
afterwards: 'You've behaved as no Bull of Bashan would have behaved.'"
"Oh, you're an alarmist," said Lady Blonze; "I particularly want to have
this idea carried out. It will be sure to be talked about a lot."
"That is quite possible," said Sir Nicholas.
* * * * *
Dinner that evening was not a particularly lively affair; the strain of
trying to impersonate a self-imposed character or to glean hints of
identity from other people's conduct acted as a check on the natural
festivity of such a gathering.
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