At the age of twenty-six one cannot claim to have attained to the position of a person of experience. Nevertheless, the knowledge of human nature accumulated in that brief period sufficed to make me feel pretty confident that, at some time during the evening, I should receive a visit from Miss Oman. And circumstances justified my confidence; for the clock yet stood at two minutes to seven when a premonitory tap at the surgery door heralded her arrival.
"I happened to be passing," she explained, and I forbore to smile at the coincidence, "so I thought I might as well drop in and hear what you wanted to ask me about."
She seated herself in the patients' chair and, laying a bundle of newspapers on the table, glared at me expectantly.
"Thank you, Miss Oman," I said. "It is very good of you to look in on me. I am ashamed to give you all this trouble about such a trifling matter."
She rapped her knuckles impatiently on the table.
"Never mind about the trouble," she exclaimed tartly. "What--is--it--that--you--want--to--ask--me about?"
I stated my difficulties in respect of the supper-party, and, as I proceeded, an expression of disgust and disappointment spread over her countenance. "I don't see why you need have been so mysterious about it," she said glumly.
"I didn't mean to be mysterious; I was only anxious not to make a mess of the affair. It's all very fine to assume a lofty scorn of the pleasures of the table, but there is great virtue in a really good feed, especially when low-living and high-thinking have been the order of the day."
"Coarsely put," said Miss Oman, "but perfectly true."
"Very well. Now, if I leave the management to Mrs. Gummer, she will probably provide a tepid Irish stew with flakes of congealed fat on it, and a plastic suet-pudding or something of that kind, and turn the house upside-down in getting it ready. So I thought of having a cold spread and getting the things in from outside. But I don't want it to look as if I had been making enormous preparations."
"They won't think the things came down from heaven," said Miss Oman.
"No, I suppose they won't. But you know what I mean. Now, where do you advise me to go for the raw materials of conviviality?"
Miss Oman reflected. "You'd better let me do your shopping and manage the whole business," was her final verdict.
This was precisely what I had wanted, and I accepted thankfully, regardless of the feelings of Mrs. Gummer. I handed her two pounds, and, after some protests at my extravagance, she bestowed them in her purse; a process that occupied time, since that receptacle, besides and time-stained bills, already bulged with a lading of draper's samples, ends of tape, a card of linen buttons, another of hooks and eyes, a lump of beeswax, a rat-eaten stump of lead-pencil, and other trifles that I have forgotten. As she closed the purse at the imminent risk of wrenching off its fastenings she looked at me severely and pursed up her lips.