THE OVERSIGHT
"It's like a Chinese puzzle," said Lady Prowche resentfully, staring at a
scribbled list of names that spread over two or three loose sheets of
notepaper on her writing-table. Most of the names had a pencil mark
running through them.
"What is like a Chinese puzzle?" asked Lena Luddleford briskly; she
rather prided herself on being able to grapple with the minor problems of
life.
"Getting people suitably sorted together. Sir Richard likes me to have a
house party about this time of year, and gives me a free hand as to whom
I should invite; all he asks is that it should be a peaceable party, with
no friction or unpleasantness."
"That seems reasonable enough," said Lena.
"Not only reasonable, my dear, but necessary. Sir Richard has his
literary work to think of; you can't expect a man to concentrate on the
tribal disputes of Central Asian clansmen when he's got social feuds
blazing under his own roof."
"But why should they blaze? Why should there be feuds at all within the
compass of a house party?"
"Exactly; why should they blaze or why should they exist?" echoed Lady
Prowche; "the point is that they always do. We have been unlucky;
persistently unlucky, now that I come to look back on things.
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