"The thing to do," said Carrie, "is to bring them back to a sense of obligation. They've got us. We stay put. They take us to parties and get up a table of bridge for us, and go off to a corner with a chit just out of school, or dance through three handkerchiefs and two collars, and grumble at paying our bridge losses. Or else they stay at home, and nothing short of a high explosive would get them out of their chairs." "Destructive criticism," said Alice Warrington, "never gets anywhere. We agree with you. There's no discussion. Are you recommending the high explosive?" "I am," said Carrie calmly. "I propose to wake them up, and to have a good time doing it." Well, as it turned out, it was I who wakened them up, and nobody had a very good time about it. "There's just one man a husband is always jealous of," Carrie went on, and her eyes were slitted as usual. "That's the man his wife could have married and didn't." I expect I coloured, for Bill has always been insanely jealous of Roger Waite, although honestly I never really cared for Roger. We used to have good times together, of course. You know. Carrie's plan came out by degrees. "It will serve two purposes," she said. "It will bring the men to a sense of responsibility, and stop this silly nonsense about bills and all that sort of thing. And it will be rather fun. It's a sin to drop old friends. Does Wallie drop his? Not so you could notice it. Every time I'm out of town he lives at Grace Barnabee's." Carrie had asked us all to spend the next week-end with her, but the husbands were going to New York for the polo game and she had called the party off. But now it was on again. "Do you girls remember the house party I had when Wallie was in Cuba, before we were engaged? We had a gorgeous time. I'm going to repeat it. It's silly to say lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place. Of course it does, if one doesn't use lightning rods. Peter Arundel for Alice, and Roger for you, Clara. Ida, you were in Europe, but we'll let you in. Who'll you have?" "Only one?" asked Ida. "Only one." Ida chose Wilbur Bayne, and Carrie wrote the notes right there in bed, with a pillow for a desk, and got ink on my best linen sheets. "I'm sorry I never thought of it before," she said. "The house party is bound to be fun, and if it turns out well we'll do it regularly. I'll ask in a few people for dancing Saturday night, but we'll keep Sunday for ourselves. We'll have a deliciously sentimental day." She sat back and threw out her arms. "Good Lord," she said, "I'm just ripe for a bit of sentiment. I want about forty-eight hours without bills or butlers or bridge. I'm going to send my diamond necklace to a safe deposit, and get out my débutante pearls, and have the wave washed out of my hair, and fill in the necks of one or two gowns. I warn you fairly, there won't be a cigarette for any of you."