The Luck of the Vails by E.F. Benson

Harry had held long sessions in his mind as to whether he should or should not ask other people to Vail to meet Lady Oxted and Miss Aylwin at the end of the month. It was but a thin hospitality, he was afraid, to bring two ladies down to Wiltshire to spend a country Sunday, and provide for their entertainment only the society of himself and his uncle; and this fear gradually deepening to certainty, he hurriedly asked four or five other guests, only two days before the projected visit, in revolt all the time at the obligations of a host. All of these, however, as was not unnatural at this fullest time in the year, were otherwise engaged, and he opened each letter of regret with increasing satisfaction. He had been balked in the prosecution of his duty; it was no use at this late hour trying again.

There were also other reasons against having a party. His uncle's health, for instance, so he wrote to him, had not been very good since his attack. He had been left rather weak and shattered by it, and though his letter was full of that zest and cheerfulness which was so habitual a characteristic with him, Harry felt that it might be better, particularly since his first meeting with Miss Aylwin would of necessity be somewhat of an emotional strain to him, not to tax him further, either with the arrangements incidental to a larger party or with their entertainment. These dutiful considerations, it must be confessed, though perfectly genuine, all led down the paths of his own desires, for it was just the enforced intimacy of a _partie carrée_ in the country from which he promised himself such an exquisite pleasure.