Ben wrote. Pleased with herself, Lilian curled her legs up on the sofa and wondered if she should be in the kitchen, helping Julie. There were to be guests for lunch.

“‘A secret’—blank—‘in the stream.’ Tennyson. Nine letters.”

“No clues?”

“Begins and ends with ‘s.’”

“Sweetness,” said Julie unexpectedly from the dining room. She appeared for a moment in the doorway and added: “In Memoriam,” polishing a glass with a dish towel.

“Twenty across,” Ben resumed, but Lilian got up and followed Julie.

The kitchen smelled of roasting lamb, and of floor polish and mint sauce. What an appalling stove, Lilian thought; surely they’ll replace it.

“Do sit down,” Julie told her, pulling out a chair by the table. “We’ll be five for lunch—some neighbors called Marchant and the three of us. No, darling, thank you, there’s nothing; everything’s done. Unless perhaps you’d like to shell the peas.” She turned her attention to the meat. “It’s quite efficient, really, this kitchen—though, as you see, we had to put in a new stove.”

Lilian began to break pods over a colander. “What are they like, your neighbors?”

“The Marchants? We scarcely know them. They drove over one day, in a Volkswagen, to call—we’d been introduced by the previous owners of the house. And they asked us to dinner last week, but we couldn’t leave the baby. Seem all right—a bit dull.” Having basted the lamb, Julie slid it back into the oven and straightened up. She plunged the basting spoon into suds in the sink. “Nothing against them, really, apart from the car.”

Arriving late in their Volkswagen, the Marchants brought with them a big, restless Dalmatian called Spot. Mr. Marchant was stocky and bald, with heavy glasses and a suit of limp tweed. Mrs. Marchant was slight and ginger-haired, and wore a green pullover and a gray flannel skirt. They stood for some minutes in the hall, commenting on improvements in high, authoritative voices, before they could be induced to enter the living room. Mrs. Marchant did not sit down at once, but moved across the room to stare at a picture before veering sharply away to the window. Rather, Lilian could not help thinking, like a small colored fish in an aquarium. Spot, after a brisk canter around the furniture, flopped down to pant in a corner, where Ben was preparing drinks.

Mrs. Marchant gave Lilian her divided attention. “You’ve just been—thank you, with a little water—to America?”

“She lives there,” Ben said, stepping over the dog. “Out of the way, Fido.”

“Spot,” corrected Mrs. Marchant, scenting disparagement.

Mr. Marchant, who was a lawyer, produced some formidably documented views on the conduct of government in the United States. Congressional legislation appeared to him as a series of venal disasters—catalogued, Lilian felt, with a certain satisfaction.

Julie was quietly interrogating the dog, now sitting at her feet. “Are you a good doggie?” Spot smiled, but kept his counsel.