ily as well as
the partner of his joys.

That same afternoon a number of the balked entertainers foregathered in
the Marchesa's drawing-room, the dominant subject of discourse being the
approaching dissolution of London society from the refusal of one human
to cook food for another. Those present were gathered in two groups. In
one the Colonel, in spite of the recent desertion of his Oriental,
was asserting that the Government should be required to bring over
consignments of perfectly trained Indian cooks, and thus trim the
balance between dining room and kitchen; and to the other Mrs.
Gradinger, a gaunt, ill-dressed lady in spectacles, with a commanding
nose and dull, wispy hair, was proclaiming in a steady metallic voice,
that it was absolutely necessary to double the school rate at once
in order to convert all the girls and some of the boys as well, into
perfectly equipped food-cooking animals; but her audience gradually fell
away, and in an interval of silence the voice of the hostess was heard
giving utterance to a tentative suggestion.

"But, my dear, it is inconceivable that the comfort and the movement of
society should depend on the humours of its servants. I don't blame them
for refusing to cook if they dislike cooking, and can find other work as
light and as well paid; but, things being as they are, I would suggest
that we set to work somehow to make ourselves independent of cooks."

"That 'somehow' is the crux, my dear Livia," said Mrs. Sinclair. "I have
a plan of my own, but I dare not breathe it, for I'm sure Mrs. Gradinger
would call it 'anti-social,' whatever that may mean."

"I should imagine that it is a term which might be applied to any scheme
which robs society of the ministrations of its cooks," said Sir John.

"I have heard mathematicians declare that what is true of the whole is
true of its parts," said the Marchesa. "I daresay it is, but I never
stopped to inquire. I will amplify on my own account, and lay down
that what is true of the parts must be true of the whole. I'm sure that
sounds quite right. Now I, as a unit of society, am independent of cooks
because I can cook myself, and if all the other units were independent,
society itself would be independent--ecco!"

"To speak in this tone of a serious science like Euclid seems rather
frivolous," said Mrs. Gradinger. "I may observe--" but here mercifully
the observation was checked by the entry of Mrs. St. Aubyn Fothergill.

She was a ha