‘Poor Elizabeth!’ she repeated. ‘My heart aches for her, for I am sure all that carping bitterness makes her wretched. I dare say it is only physical: liver perhaps, or acidity. The ideal system of callisthenics might do wonders for her. I cannot, as you will readily understand, dear Irene, make the first approaches to her after her conduct to me, and the dreadful innuendoes she has made, but I should like her to know that I bear her no malice at all. Do convey that to her some time. Tactfully, of course. Women like her who do all they can on every possible occasion to hurt and injure others are usually very sensitive themselves, and I would not add to the poor creature’s other chagrins. You must all be kind to her.’

‘My dear, you’re too wonderful!’ said Irene, in a sort of ecstasy. ‘What a joy you are! But, alas, you’re leaving us so soon. It’s too unkind of you to desert us.’

Lucia had dropped on to the music stool by the piano which had so long been dumb, except for a few timorous chords muffled by the unsustenuto pedal, and dreamily recalled the first bars of the famous slow movement.

Irene sat down on the cold hot-water pipes and yearned at her.

‘You can do everything,’ she said. ‘You play like an angel, and you can knock out Mapp with your little finger, and you can skip and play bridge, and you’ve got such a lovely nature that you don’t bear Mapp the slightest grudge for her foul plots. You are adorable! Won’t you ask me to come and stay with you at Riseholme sometime?’

Lucia, still keeping perfect time with her triplets while this recital of her perfections was going on, considered whether she should not tell Irene at once that she had practically determined not to desert them. She had intended to tell Georgie first, but she would do that when he came back tomorrow, and she wanted to see about getting a house here without delay. She played a nimble arpeggio on the chord of C sharp minor and closed the piano.

‘Too sweet of you to like me, dear,’ she said, ‘but as for your staying with me at Riseholme, I don’t think I shall ever go back there myself. I have fallen in love with this dear Tilling, and I fully expect I shall settle here for good.’

‘Angel!’ said Irene.