The door opened. Pinky and Bertie came through. Pinky made a dramatic pounce at Anelida and laid her hand on her arm. ‘Darling!’ she cried incoherently. ‘Forget it! Nothing! God, what a scene!‘ She turned distractedly to the stairs, found herself cut off by the cinema unit and doubled back into the drawing-room. The camera men began to move their equipment across the hall.

‘Too much!’ Bertie said. ‘No! Too much.’ He disappeared in the direction of the men’s cloakroom.

Timon Gantry came out, ‘Dicky,’ he said, ‘push off. I want a word with this girl. You won’t do any good while you’re in this frame of mind. Off!’

He took Anelida by the shoulders. ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘You will rise above. You will not let this make the smallest difference. Go home, now, and sort yourself out. I shall judge you by this and I shall see you on Thursday. Understood?’ He gave her a firm little shake and stood back.

Warrender appeared, shutting the door behind him. He glared wretchedly at Anelida and barked: ‘Anything I can do – realize how distressed.… Isn’t it?’

Octavius said: ‘Very kind: I don’t think, however …’

Richard announced loudly: ‘I’ll never forgive her for this. Never.’

Anelida thought: ‘If I don’t go now I’ll break down.’ She heard her own voice: ‘Don’t give it another thought. Come along, Unk.’

She turned and walked out of the house into the familiar square, and Octavius followed her.

‘Richard,’ Warrender said, ‘I must have a word with you, boy. Come in here.’

‘No,’ Richard said and he, too, went out into the square.

Gantry stood for a moment looking after him.

‘I find myself,’ he observed, ‘unable, any longer, to tolerate Mary Bellamy.’

A ripple of applause broke out in the dining-room. Miss Bellamy was about to cut her birthday cake.

III

Miss Bellamy was a conscientious, able and experienced actress. Her public appearances were the result of hard work as well as considerable talent and, if one principle above all others could be said to govern them, it was that which is roughly indicated in the familiar slogan ‘The show must go on.’ It was axiomatic with Miss Bellamy that whatever disrupting influences might attend her, even up to the moment when her hand was on the offstage door knob, they would have no effect whatsoever upon her performance.

They had none on the evening of her fiftieth birthday. She remained true to type.

When the procession with the cake appeared in the dining-room beyond the glass wall of the conservatory, she turned upon the persons with whom she had been doing battle and uttered the single and strictly professional order: ‘Clear!’