"
"It would require no ordinary human strategy to lose Agnes Blaik when
luncheon was imminent: in fact, I don't believe it could be done."
"Then have all the other guests, people whom you dislike, and lose the
luncheon. It could have been sent by accident in the wrong direction."
"It would be a ghastly picnic," said Mrs. Thackenbury.
"For them, but not for you," said Clovis; "you would have had an early
and comforting lunch before you started, and you could improve the
occasion by mentioning in detail the items of the missing banquet--the
lobster Newburg and the egg mayonnaise, and the curry that was to have
been heated in a chafing-dish. Agnes Blaik would be delirious long
before you got to the list of wines, and in the long interval of waiting,
before they had quite abandoned hope of the lunch turning up, you could
induce them to play silly games, such as that idiotic one of 'the Lord
Mayor's dinner-party,' in which every one has to choose the name of a
dish and do something futile when it is called out. In this case they
would probably burst into tears when their dish is mentioned. It would
be a heavenly picnic."
Mrs. Thackenbury was silent for a moment; she was probably making a
mental list of the people she would like to invite to the Duke Humphrey
picnic. Presently she asked: "And that odious young man, Waldo Plubley,
who is always coddling himself--have you thought of anything that one
could do to him?" Evidently she was beginning to see the possibilities
of Nemesis Day.
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