‘But, Francis, how can I explain? If you wrote bloody, you wrote it, and that’s all there is to it. Incidentally, what a silly thing to do. You know those people—’

She stopped, and wiped a dish with care. She had been going to say that working-class people were always easily shocked, but that was snobbish and it might hurt Francis’s feelings. And anyway, bloody was an ugly word; it was a pity that other classes were not shocked by it.

‘It’s seeing it written, I suppose?’ she amended.

‘I suppose so. Anyway, it’s a most sickening bore. Will you go, darling? Do. It won’t be so awful, really. Toby’s mother is very nice when you get to know her.’

‘Is she frightening?’

‘Well, just a bit at first, perhaps. She’s got a rather severe manner.’

‘Oh!’ exploded Sophia, dashing down her dishcloth, ‘it’s too sickening! I come back from the first peaceful holiday I’ve ever had, and here are all these awful things waiting for me. You know I loathe rows and explanations and fusses and things. It’s too bad of you to let me in for this. Curse Toby’s mother, I say. And what’s this note about from X. Y. Z. Pell or whoever he is? You’ve been up to something, I suppose. What was it? The twenty-first party? What happened? I suppose it was frightfully rowdy. You may as well tell me.’

‘Well it was, rather. You see, Juan would have champagne.’

‘Oh, he would, would he? And who paid for it?’

‘He and Harry went halves.’

‘How much did it come to?’

‘Oh … rather a lot, Sophia. But it’s all right. Harry’s got plenty of money. You see he asked old Marriot for the two thousand pounds, and he got it, too!’

‘Francis!’ She stared at his half-ashamed, half-triumphant face. ‘He didn’t. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? How could Marriot let him have it?’

‘He had to. It’s Harry’s.’

‘But Uncle Preston … didn’t he do anything? He must have been in an awful state …’

‘Oh, as soon as Marriot told him he began telephoning. We answered the ’phone once, and then Harry rang off because Uncle Preston kept on blethering so, and he wouldn’t answer the telephone again. It kept on ringing all the evening. We stuffed the bell up at last.’

Sophia looked at the bell. It was muffled by one of Harry’s socks.

‘When did this happen?’

‘Yesterday evening. We were having a party.’

Sophia sat down on the step which led into the kitchen, and looked up at him. He looked at her with the steady, fixed smile which she knew meant that he was both angry with her and ashamed of himself.

‘Another rowdy one?’

‘Pretty rowdy. June came, and that little Sally-object, and Juan and Edward …’

‘How long did it go on?’

‘Finished at four this morning. I didn’t go to work. Harry ’phoned to say I was ill. I felt it, too. Champagne and gin is a bit too much for me.’