Dear Mary: What do you do when your hostess licks your spoon?

Q. I have happily overcome many moments of diplomatic and social challenge, but was stumped by the case of the licked cutlery. What does one do when one’s distinguished hostess asks to taste your soup, only to return your spoon smeared after more than a delicate sip? In a choice between not implying she has germs or benefiting from the attention of a waiter, do you use it or lose it?
— A.D., London SW1

A. This is a tricky question, particularly as the hostess may have sought subconsciously to confer a degree of intimacy or friendship (albeit unreciprocated) by the sharing of the spoon. The answer is to divert the phobia on to yourself as the germ supplier. Call for a secondary spoon and explain that since, within living memory, a close relation who had been engaged on missionary work inadvertently infected a co-diner with wet leprosy, there has been a superstition in the family about never sharing cutlery.