‘I suppose I’m lucky,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a cook and five maids and Barker, but they’re all very old, and have been collected from different branches of the family. My sister-in-law, Pauline, Mrs Claude Ancred, you know, gave up her own house in the evacuation time and has recently joined us with two of her maids. Desdemona did the same thing, and she makes Ancreton her headquarters now. She brought her old Nanny. Barker and the others have always been with us. But even with the West Wing turned into a school it’s difficult. In the old days of course,’ said Millamant with a certain air of complacency, ‘there was a swarm.’

‘Do they get on together?’ Troy asked vaguely. She was watching Cedric and Miss Orrincourt. Evidently he had decided to adopt ingratiating tactics, and a lively but completely synthetic flirtation had developed. They whispered together.

‘Oh, no,’ Millamant was saying. ‘They fight.’ And most unexpectedly she added: ‘Like master like man, they say, don’t they?’ Troy looked at her. She was smiling broadly and blankly. It is a characteristic of these people, Troy reflected, that they constantly make remarks to which there is no answer.

Pauline Ancred came in and joined her son and Fenella. She did this with a certain air of determination, and the smile she gave Fenella was a dismissal. ‘Darling,’ she said to Paul, ‘I’ve been looking for you.’ Fenella at once moved away. Pauline, using a gesture that was Congrevian in its accomplishment, raised a pair of lorgnettes and stared through them at Miss Orrincourt, who now reclined at full length on the sofa. Cedric was perched on the arm at her feet.

‘I’ll get you a chair, Mother,’ said Paul hastily.

‘Thank you, dear,’ she said, exchanging a glance with her sister-in-law. ‘I should like to sit down. No, please, Mrs Alleyn, don’t move. So sweet of you. Thank you, Paul.’

‘Noddy and I,’ said Miss Orrincourt brightly, ‘have been having such fun. We’ve been looking at some of that old jewellery.’ She stretched her arms above her head and yawned delicately

‘Noddy?’ Troy wondered. ‘But who is Noddy?’ Miss Orrincourt’s remark was followed by a rather deadly little pause. ‘He’s all burnt up about having his picture taken,’ Miss Orrincourt added. ‘Isn’t it killing?’

Pauline Ancred, with a dignified shifting of her torso, brought her sister-in-law into her field of vision. ‘Have you seen Papa this afternoon, Millamant?’ she asked, not quite cordially, but with an air of joining forces against a common enemy.

‘I went up as usual at four o’clock,’ Millamant rejoined, ‘to see if there was anything I could do for him.’ She glanced at Miss Orrincourt. ‘He was engaged, however.’

‘T’uh!’ said Pauline lightly, and she began to revolve her thumbs one around the other. Millamant gave the merest sketch of a significant laugh and turned to Troy.