‘Always the same after tantrums,’ said Old Ninn. She added woodenly: ‘She’ll be the ruin of that boy.’

‘She’ll be the ruin of herself,’ said Florence, ‘if she doesn’t watch her step.’

III

When Miss Bellamy had gone Anelida, in great distress, turned to her uncle. Octavius was humming a little Elizabethan catch and staring at himself in a Jacobean looking-glass above his desk.

‘Captivating!’ he said. ‘Enchanting! Upon my word, Nell, it must be twenty years since a pretty woman made much of me. I feel, I promise you, quite giddily inclined. And the whole thing – so spontaneous: so touchingly impulsive! We have widened our horizon, my love.’

‘Unk,’ Anelida said rather desperately, ‘you can’t think, my poor blessing, what a muddle you’ve made.’

‘A muddle?’ He looked plaintively at her and she knew she was in for trouble. ‘What do you mean? I accept an invitation, most graciously extended by a charming woman. Pray where is the muddle?’ She didn’t answer, and he said: ‘There are certain matters, of course, to be considered. I do not, for instance, know what clothes are proper, nowadays, for cocktail parties. In my day one would have worn –’

‘It’s not a matter of clothes.’

‘No? In any case, you shall instruct me.’

‘I’ve already told Richard I can’t go to the party.’

‘Nonsense, my dear. Of course we can go,’ Octavius said. ‘What arc you thinking of?’

‘It’s so hard to explain, Unky. It’s just that – well, it’s partly because of me being in the theatre only so very much at the bottom of the ladder – less than the dust, you know, beneath Miss B.’s chariot wheels. I’d be like a corporal in the officers’ mess.’

‘That,’ said Octavius, reddening with displeasure, ‘seems to me to be a false analogy, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, Nelly. And, my dear, when one quotes it is pleasant to borrow from reputable sources. The Indian Love lyrics, in my undergraduate days, were the scourge of the drawing-rooms.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It would be extremely uncivil to refuse so kind an invitation,’ Octavius said, looking more and more like a spoilt and frustrated child. ‘I want to accept it. What is the matter with you, Anelida?’

‘The truth is,’ Anelida said rather desperately, ‘I don’t quite know where I am with Richard Dakers.’

Octavius stared at her and experienced a moment of truth. ‘ Now that I consider it,’ he said huffily, ‘I realize that Dakers is paying his addresses to you. I wonder that it hasn’t occurred to me before. Have you taken against him?’