However, there was one way she could force Mr. Wilkins into his proper place and save the situation:  she could say she herself intended to invite a friend.  It was her right.  They had all said so.  Apart from propriety, it was monstrous that Mrs. Wilkins should want to monopolise the one spare-room, when in her own room was everything necessary for her husband.  Perhaps she really would invite somebody—­ not invite, but suggest coming.  There was Kate Lumley, for instance.  Kate could perfectly afford to come and pay her share; and she was of her own period and knew, and had known, most of the people she herself knew and had known.  Kate, of course, had only been on the fringe; she used to be asked only to the big parties, not to the small ones, and she still was only on the fringe.  There were some people who never got off the fringe, and Kate was one.  Often, however, such people were more permanently agreeable to be with than the others, in that they remained grateful.

Yes; she might really consider Kate.  The poor soul had never married, but then everybody could not expect to marry, and she was quite comfortably off—­not too comfortably, but just comfortably enough to pay her own expenses if she came and yet be grateful.  Yes; Kate was the solution.  If she came, at one stroke, Mrs. Fisher saw, would the Wilkinses be regularized and Mrs. Wilkins be prevented from having more than her share of the rooms.  Also, Mrs. Fisher would save herself from isolation; spiritual isolation.  She desired physical isolation between meals, but she disliked that isolation which is of the spirit.  Such isolation would, she feared, certainly be hers with these three alien-minded young women.  Even Mrs. Arbuthnot was, owing to her friendship with Mrs. Wilkins, necessarily alien-minded.  In Kate she would have a support.  Kate, without intruding on her sitting-room, for Kate was tractable, would be there at meals to support her.

Mrs. Fisher said nothing at the moment; but presently in the drawing-room, when they were gathered round the wood fire—­she had discovered there was no fireplace in her own sitting-room, and therefore she would after all be forced, so long as the evenings remained cool, to spend them in the other room—­presently, while Francesca was handing coffee round and Lady Caroline was poisoning the air with smoke, Mrs. Wilkins, looking relieved and pleased, said:  “Well, if nobody really wants that room, and wouldn’t use it anyhow, I shall be very glad if Mellersh may have it.”

“Of course he must have it,” said Lady Caroline.

Then Mrs. Fisher spoke.

“I have a friend,” she said in her deep voice; and sudden silence fell upon the others.

“Kate Lumley,” said Mrs. Fisher.

Nobody spoke.

“Perhaps,” continued Mrs. Fisher, addressing Lady Caroline, “you know her?”

No, Lady Caroline did not know Kate Lumley; and Mrs. Fisher, without asking the others if they did, for she was sure they knew no one, proceeded.  “I wish to invite her to join me,” said Mrs. Fisher.