‘No good trying to break that down,’ thought Lord Robert. ‘Not here. He’d only cut me and someone would notice.’ He felt wretchedly depressed and tired, and was filled with a premonition of disaster that quite astonished himself. ‘Good God,’ he thought suddenly, ‘I must be going to be ill.’ And oddly enough this comforted him a little. In the lower hall he found Bridget O’Brien with a neat, competent-looking young woman whose face he dimly remembered.

‘Now, Miss Harris,’ Bridgie was saying, ‘are you sure you’re getting on all right? Have you had supper?’

‘Well, thank you so much, Miss O’Brien, but really it doesn’t matter—’

Of course, it was Evelyn’s secretary. Nice of Evelyn to ask her. Nice of Bridgie to take trouble. He said:

‘Hullo, m’dear. What a grand ball. Has your mother come this way?’

‘She’s in the supper-room,’ said Bridget without looking at him, and he realized that of course she had heard Donald’s side of their quarrel. He said:

‘Thank you, Bridgie, I’ll find her.’ He saw Miss Harris was looking a little like a lost child so he said: ‘Wonder if you’d be very nice and give me a dance later on? Would you?’

Miss Harris turned scarlet and said she would be very pleased thank you, Lord—Lord Gospell.

‘Got it wrong,’ thought Lord Robert. ‘Poor things, they don’t get much fun. Wonder what they think of it all. Not much, you may depend upon it.’

He found Lady Carrados in the supper-room. He took her to a corner table, made her drink champagne and tried to persuade her to eat.

‘I know what you’re all like,’ he told her. ‘Nothing all day in your tummies and then get through the night on your nerves. I remember mama used to have the vapours whenever she gave a big party. She always came round in time to receive the guests.’

He chattered away, eating a good deal himself and getting over his own unaccountable fit of depression in his effort to help Lady Carrados. He looked round and saw that the supper-room was inhabited by only a few chaperones and their partners. Poor Davidson was still in Lucy Lorrimer’s toils. Withers and Mrs Halcut-Hackett were tucked away in a corner. She was talking to him earnestly and apparently with great emphasis. He glowered at the table and laughed unpleasantly.

‘Lor’!’ thought Lord Robert, ‘she’s giving him his marching orders. Now why’s that? Afraid of the General or of—what? Of the blackmailer? I wonder if Withers is the subject of those letters. I wonder if Dimitri has seen her with him some time. I’ll swear it was Dimitri’s hand. But what does he know about Evelyn? The least likely woman in the world to have a guilty secret. And, damme, there is the fellow as large as you please, running the whole show.’