The explosion was touched off by Bertie himself who came tripping back with a garland of tuberoses twined round his person. When he saw Pinky he stopped short, looked from her to Miss Bellamy and turned rather white.

‘Bertie,’ Pinky said. ‘I’ve split on you.’

‘How could you!’ he said. ‘Oh, Pinky, how could you!’

Pinky burst into tears.

‘I don’t know!’ she stammered. ‘I didn’t mean to, Bertie darling. Forgive me. I was high.’

‘Stay me with flagons!’ he said in a small voice. Miss Bellamy, employing a kind of enlargement of herself that was technically one of her most telling achievements, crossed to him and advanced her face to within four inches of his own.

‘You rat, Bertie,’ she said quietly. ‘You little, two-timing, double-crossing, dirty rat.’

And she wound her hands in his garland, tore it off him and threw it in his face.

CHAPTER 2

Preparation for a Party

Mary Bellamy’s temperaments were of rare occurrence but formidable in the extreme and frightening to behold. They were not those regulation theatre tantrums that seem to afford pleasure both to observer and performer; on the contrary they devoured her like some kind of migraine and left her exhausted. Their onset was sudden, their duration prolonged and their sequel incalculable.

Bertie and Pinky, both familiar with them, exchanged looks of despair. Miss Bellamy had not raised her voice, but a kind of stillness seemed to have fallen on the house. They themselves spoke in whispers. They also, out of some impulse of helpless unanimity, said the same thing at the same time.

‘Mary!’ they said. ‘Listen! Don’t!’

They knew very well that they had better have held their tongues. Their effort, feeble though it was, served only to inflame her. With an assumption of calmness that was infinitely more alarming than raging hysteria she set about them, concentrating at first on Bertie.

‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘what it feels like to be you. I wonder if you enjoy your own cunning. I expect you do, Bertie. I expect you rather pride yourself on your talent for cashing in on other people’s generosity. On mine, for instance.’

‘Mary, darling! Please!’

‘Let us,’ she continued, trembling slightly, ‘look at this thing quite calmly and objectively, shall we? I’m afraid it will not be a delicious experience but it has to be faced.’

Gracefield came in, took one look at his mistress and went out again. He had been with the family for some time.

‘I am the last woman in the world,’ Miss Bellamy explained, ‘to remind people of their obligations. The last. However –’