The Man in Possession — page 119: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

114 THE MAN IN POSSESSION. ‘‘May I come in for a few moments chat?” said Lady Jocelyn’s voice. ‘Qh, certainly,” Kate answered readily. She was a little surprised, but Lady Jocelyn had been par- ticularly kind and attentive to her, and she supposed this visit was only on some matter respecting the forthcoming theatricals. ‘‘T’m so glad you weren’t in bed,” said the elder lady as she came over to the fire and took another easy-chair. ‘‘One gets so little time to oneself,” she added, ‘‘ and so little time to talk to any one one cares for. Even my poor Wilfred complains he scarcely ever gets ten minutes alone with me.” ‘You must find this perpetual entertaining very fatiguing,” said Kate sympathetically. ‘Indeed Ido, my dear. And I get no pity, though I work likea slave. Ireally do. People are so dis- contented and so hard to please. Really society wants to be treated like a Royal Personage, and have one’s house list and dinner list submitted to it for selec- tion. Itdoesn’t matter how much trouble I take, there is always somebody who doesn’t want to meet some other somebody, and makes it altogether disagreeable on that account, as if,” she added plaintively, ‘‘I can keep count of the feuds and jealousies and squabbles that have gone on through the season. Why, I assure you my dear, I’ve asked women to my house parties who have been the dearest of friends and perfectly inseparable for a whole season, only to find that they werent on speaking terms when they met in the winter.” Kate laughed. ‘‘ But why do you ask people at COMicloe (Sri C(O)