Florence had opened the new bottle of scent and was pouring it into the Venetian glass atomiser. The air was thickened with effluvium so strong that it almost gave the impression of being visible. Charles made the slightest of grimaces.

‘Do you think I’m overdressed, Charles?’ Miss Bellamy demanded.

‘I have implicit faith in your judgment,’ he said. ‘And you look glorious.’

‘Why did you make a face?’

‘It’s that scent. I find it a bit too much. It’s – well –’

‘Well! What is it?’

‘I fancy indecent is the word I’m groping for.’

‘It happens to be the most exclusive perfume on the market.’

‘I don’t much like the word “perfume,” but in this case it seems to be entirely appropriate.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a high voice, ‘that you find my choice of words non-U.’

‘My dear Mary! …’

Florence screwed the top on the atomiser and placed it, with the three-quarters emptied bottle on the dressing-table. She then retired to the bathroom.

Charles Templeton took his wife’s hands in his and kissed them. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘That’s your usual scent.’

‘The last dregs.’

‘I’ll give you some more.’

She made as if to pull her hands away, but he folded them between his own.

‘Do something for me,’ he said. ‘Will you? I never ask you.’

‘My dear Charles!’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘What?’

‘Don’t use that stuff. It’s vulgar, Mary. The room stinks of it already.’

She stared at him with a kind of blank anger. His skin was mottled. The veins showed on his nose and his eyes were watery. It was an elderly face, and not very handsome.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said and withdrew her hands.

Warrender tapped on the door and came in. When he saw Miss Bellamy he ejaculated ‘What!’ several times and was so clearly bowled over that her ill-humour modulated into a sort of petulant gratification. She made much of him and pointedly ignored her husband.

‘You are the most fabulous, heavenly sweetie-pie,’ she said and kissed his ear.

He turned purple and said: ‘By George!’

Charles had walked over to the window. The tin of Slaypest was still there. At the same moment Florence reentered the room. Charles indicated the tin. Florence cast up her eyes.

He said: ‘Mary, you do leave the windows open, don’t you, when you use this stuff on your plants?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she exclaimed. ‘Have you got a secret Thing about sprays? You’d better get yourself psychoed, my poor Charles.’

‘It’s dangerous. I took the trouble to buy a text book on these things and what it has to say is damn’ disquieting. I showed it to Maurice. Read it yourself, my dear, if you don’t believe me. Ask Maurice. You don’t think she ought to monkey about with it, do you, Maurice?’