She was joined there by Florence who had come up by the back stairway. They communicated in a series of restrained gestures and brief whispers.

‘You all right, Mrs Plumtree?’

‘Why not!’ Ninn countered austerely.

‘You look flushed,’ Florence observed dryly.

‘The heat in those rooms is disgraceful.’

‘Has She come up?’

‘In there.’

‘Trouble?’ Florence asked, listening. Ninn said nothing. ‘It’s him, isn’t it? Mr Richard? What’s he been up to?’

‘Nothing,’ Ninn said, ‘that wouldn’t be a credit to him, Floy, and I’ll thank you to remember it.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Florence said rather acidly. ‘He’s a man like the rest of them.’

‘He’s better than most.’

In the bedroom Miss Bellamy’s voice murmured, rose sharply and died. Richard’s scarcely audible, sounded at intervals. Then both together, urgent and expostulatory, mounted to some climax and broke off. There followed a long silence during which the two women stared at each other, and then a brief unexpected sound.

‘What was that!’ Florence whispered.

‘Was she laughing?’

‘It’s left off now.’

Ninn said nothing. ‘Oh, well,’ Florence said, and had moved away when the door opened.

Richard came out, white to the lips. He walked past without seeing them, paused at the stairhead and pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes. They heard him fetch his breath with a harsh sound that might have been a sob. He stood there for some moments like a man who had lost his bearings and then struck his closed hand twice on the newel post and went quickly downstairs.

‘What did I tell you,’ Florence said. She stole nearer to the door. It was not quite shut. ‘Trouble,’ she said.

‘None of his making.’

‘How do you know?’

‘The same way,’ Ninn said, ‘that I know how to mind my own business.’

Inside the room, perhaps beyond it, something crashed.

They stood there, irresolute, listening.

IV

At first Miss Bellamy had not been missed. Her party had reverted to its former style, a little more confused by the circulation of champagne. It spread through the two rooms and into the conservatory and became noisier and noisier. Everybody forgot about the ceremony of opening the birthday presents. Nobody noticed that Richard, too, was absent.

Gantry edged his way towards Charles who was in the drawing-room and stooped to make himself heard.

‘Dicky,’ he said, ‘has made off.’

‘Where to?’

‘I imagine to do the best he can with the girl and her uncle.’

Charles looked at him with something like despair. ‘There’s nothing to be done,’ he said; ‘nothing. It was shameful.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t know. Isn’t she in the next room?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gantry said.

‘I wish to God this show was over.’

‘She ought to get on with the present-opening. They won’t go till she does.’

Pinky had come up. ‘Where’s Mary? ‘ she said.