‘It’s a mausoleum,’ said Bridget, ‘but it’ll do. I’ve got a letter from Sarah Alleyn, Donna. Her grandmother, your Lady Alleyn, you know, is taking a flat for the season. Donna, please, I want Sarah asked for everything. Does Miss Harris know?’

‘Yes, thank you, Miss Carrados. I beg pardon,’ said Miss Harris in some confusion, ‘I should have said, Miss O’Brien, shouldn’t I?’

‘Help, yes! Don’t fall into that trap whatever you do,’ cried Bridget. ‘Sorry, Donna darling, but really!’

‘Ssh!’ said Lady Carrados mildly. ‘Are those your letters?’

‘Yes. All the invitations. I’ve put a black mark against the ones I really do jib at and all the rest will just have to be sorted out. Oh, and I’ve put a big Y on the ones I want specially not to miss. And—’

The door opened again and the photograph on the dressing-table limped into the room.

Sir Herbert Carrados was just a little too good to be true. He was tall and soldierly and good-looking. He had thin sandy hair, a large guardsman’s moustache, heavy eyebrows and rather foolish light eyes. You did not notice they were foolish because his eyebrows gave them a spurious fierceness. He was not, however, a stupid man but only a rather vain and pompous one. It was his pride that he looked like a soldier and not like a successful financier. During the Great War he had held down a staff appointment of bewildering unimportance which had kept him in Tunbridge Wells for the duration and which had not hampered his sound and at times brilliant activities in the City. He limped a little and used a stick. Most people took it as a matter of course that he had been wounded in the leg, and so he had—by a careless gamekeeper. He attended military reunions with the greatest assiduity and was about to stand for Parliament.

Bridget called him Bart, which he rather liked, but he occasionally surprised a look of irony in her eyes and that he did not at all enjoy.

This morning he had The Times under his arm and an expression of forbearance on his face. He kissed his wife, greeted Miss Harris with precisely the correct shade of cordiality, and raised his eyebrows at his stepdaughter.

‘Good morning, Bridget. I thought you were still in bed.’

‘Good morning, Bart,’ said Bridget. ‘Why?’

‘You were not at breakfast. Don’t you think perhaps it would be more considerate to the servants if you breakfasted before you started making plans?’

‘I expect it would,’ agreed Bridget and went as far as the door.

‘What are your plans for today, darling?’ continued Sir Herbert, smiling at his wife.

‘Oh—everything. Bridget’s dance. Miss Harris and I are—are going into expense, Herbert.’

‘Ah, yes?’ murmured Sir Herbert. ‘I’m sure Miss Harris is a perfect dragon with figures. What’s the total, Miss Harris?’

‘For the ball, Sir Herbert?’ Miss Harris glanced at Lady Carrados who nodded a little nervously. ‘It’s about a thousand pounds.’