‘Maysie tells me you write poetry,’ said Mrs Kellett. ‘Do have another tomato.’

‘Yes,’ murmured Sophia. ‘No, thank you.’

‘That’s very clever,’ said Mrs Kellett, rather as a missionary might congratulate an aborigine on his skill in throwing the boomerang.

‘Not clever. It’s like having lovely hair,’ said Sophia audaciously. ‘Natural, that’s all.’

Mrs Kellett laughed for the first time, and put up her hand a little shyly to the edifice.

‘I never do anything to it. Just Sunlight soap and water,’ she said; Sophia could see, in the smile and gesture, what she must have looked like when she was eighteen years old. But oh! when was she going to get on to the letter? This silence, this avoidance, the ritual feast and ceremonial remarks, were beginning to make the victim feel hysterical.

At last, when tea had been finished and taken away and the time was a quarter to five, Sophia observed, as she was making a remark to Toby, Mrs Kellett motion the mouse into the next room. The mouse gave her mother an imploring look (it was evident that the mouse was a favourite), but was sent scurrying by an imperial frown; and when she had gone Mrs Kellett stood up, turned her back on the two girls, on whom an alarmed hush had fallen, and took down the letter.

She slowly turned round.

Two very pale faces, with very large solemn eyes, looked up at her.

‘Well,’ pronounced Mrs Kellett, ‘I don’t think we’ll say any more about this, shall we?’ and, removing the kettle, she dropped the letter into the heart of the fire.

‘Oh … thank you very much … I’m sure he didn’t …’

‘We’ll say no more about it.’

And so the incident closed.

No well-bred woman could have managed the matter with more dignity, generosity and tact. Sophia felt really awed. For the first time in her life she saw, in the person of a fireman’s wife who lived in two rooms, the magnificent antique virtues upon which great nations are founded. She went down the iron staircase, after a firm handshake from Mrs Kellett and a grateful hug from Toby, feeling very small, very contemporary and very weak-minded.

A slender man with dark eyes was crossing the yard as she went out. This might be Dad; this was where Toby got her eyes and a certain warmth which the goddess lacked. The goddess, Sophia surmised, either kept Dad well in order or had to forgive him now and then.

Though the affair had ended so well she felt exhausted by the strain of the afternoon’s happenings, and angry with Francis as she rode homewards.

It was too bad. He ought not to have let her in for such an interview; he should firmly have made it plain that she could not go. The interview might have been very unpleasant indeed; for all Francis knew, it would be. He had let her in for it too easily, and she was angry with him.