Whittaker’s At Homes was to prevent people from talking about servants, food, and domestic worries. Her method was to invite large numbers of artistic, literary, and otherwise interesting people from distant London, who were apparently immune from domestic worries or were at any rate capable of excluding them from their conversation. The artistic element was thinly represented this evening by a psychologist from Oxford and a dramatic critic. But, nobly though they strove to discuss the drama and the mind, they were hopelessly swamped by a loud discussion on domestic servants and food among the ladies of The Chase, vigorously led by Mrs. Vincent and Mrs. Church. Mrs. Ralph Vincent was a carroty-haired lady of extraordinary aggressiveness and defiant juvenility in the face of her forty-five summers and seven children. Mrs. Church was the widow-daughter of old Mrs. Ambrose, who was ninety and extremely deaf.
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