‘You’re so kind. Bertie – do you think she’ll – do you think she can – ?’

‘She’ll try, dear. She’ll try.’

‘It took everything I’ve got, I promise you, to give battle. Honestly, Bertie, she frightened me. She looked murderous.’

‘Horrid, wasn’t it?’

Pinky stared absently at the great flask of the scent called ‘Unguarded.’ A ray of sunshine had caught it and it shone golden.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

Bertie picked up a handful of tuberoses from the carpet.

‘Get on with me bloody flowers, dear,’ he said. ‘Get on with me bloody flowers.’

II

Having effected her exit, Miss Bellamy swept like a sirocco past Richard, Warrender and her husband and continued upstairs. In her bedroom she encountered Florence who said: ‘What have you been doing to yourself?’

‘You shut up,’ Miss Bellamy shouted and slammed the door.

‘Whatever it is it’s no good to you. Come on, dear. What’s the story?’

‘Bloody treachery’s the story. Shut up. I don’t want to tell you. My God, what friends I’ve got! My God, what friends!’

She strode about the room and made sounds of outrage and defeat. She flung herself on the bed and pummelled it.

Florence said: ‘You know what’ll be the end of this – party and all.’

Miss Bellamy burst into tears. ‘I haven’t,’ she sobbed, ‘a friend in the world. Not in the whole wide world. Except Dicky.’

A spasm of something that might have been chagrin twitched at Florence’s mouth. ‘Him!’ she said under her breath.

Miss Bellamy abandoned herself to a passion of tears. Florence went into the bathroom and returned with sal volatile.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Try this. Come along now, dear.’

‘I don’t want that muck. Give me one of my tablets.’

‘Not now.’

‘Now!’

‘You know as well as I do, the doctor said only at night.’

‘I don’t care what he said. Get me one.’

She turned her head and looked up at Florence, ‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘There aren’t any left. I was going to send out.’

Miss Bellamy said through her teeth: ‘I’ve had enough of this. You think you can call the tune here, don’t you? You think you’re indispensable. You never made a bigger mistake. You’re not indispensable and the sooner you realize it, the better for you. Now, get out.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Get out!’

Florence stood quite still for perhaps ten seconds and then left the room.

Miss Bellamy stayed where she was. Her temperament, bereft of an audience, gradually subsided. Presently she went to her dressing-table, dealt with her face and gave herself three generous shots from her scent spray. At the fourth, it petered out. The bottle was empty. She made an exasperated sound, stared at herself in the glass and for the first time since the onset of her rage, began to think collectedly.