Sir Henry, scarlet in the face, leapt to his feet and snatched up the loose cushioned seat. He exposed a still partially inflated bladder-like object, across which was printed a legend, ‘The Raspberry. Makes your Party go off with a Bang.’ He seized it, and again, through some concealed orifice, it emitted its dreadful sound. He hurled it accurately into the fire and the stench of burning rubber filled the room.

‘Well, I mean to say,’ said Miss Orrincourt, ‘fun’s fun, but I think that kid’s getting common in her ways.’

Sir Henry walked in silence to the door, where, inevitably, he turned to deliver an exit line. ‘Millamant,’ he said, ‘in the morning you will be good enough to send for my solicitor.’

The door banged. After a minute’s complete silence Troy was at last able to escape from the drawing-room.

Troy was not much surprised in the morning to learn that Sir Henry was too unwell to appear, though he hoped in the afternoon to resume the usual sitting. A note on her early tea-tray informed her that Cedric would be delighted to pose in the costume if this would be of any service. She thought it might. There was the scarlet cloak to be attended to. She had half-expected a disintegration of the family forces, at least the disappearance, possibly in opposite directions, of Fenella and Paul. She had yet to learn of the Ancreds’ resilience in inter-tribal warfare. At breakfast they both appeared—Fenella, white and silent; Paul, red and silent. Pauline arrived a little later. Her attitude to her son suggested that he was ill of some not entirely respectable disease. With Fenella she adopted an air of pained antipathy and would scarcely speak to her. Millamant presided. She was less jolly than usual, but behind her anxiety, if she was indeed anxious, Troy detected a hint of complacency. There was more than a touch of condolence in her manner towards her sister-in-law, and this, Troy felt, Pauline deeply resented.

‘Well, Milly,’ said Pauline after a long silence, ‘do you propose to continue your role under new management?’

‘I’m always rather lost, Pauline, when you adopt theatrical figures of speech.’

‘Are you going to house-keep, then, for the new châtelaine?’

‘I hardly expect to do so.’

‘Poor Milly,’ said Pauline. ‘It’s going to be, difficult for you, I’m afraid.’

‘I don’t think so. Cedric and I have always thought we’d like to have a little pied-à-terre together in London.’

‘Yes,’ Pauline agreed, much too readily, ‘Cedric will have to draw in his horns a bit too, one supposes.’

‘Perhaps Paul and Fenella would consider allowing me to house-keep for them,’ said Millamant, with her first laugh that morning. And with an air of genuine interest she turned to them. ‘How are you going to manage, both of you?’ she asked.