‘I knew parting from Foljambe would be a great blow to you,’ she said, with an acidity that Georgie could hardly fail to notice. ‘What a pity that row you told me about came to nothing! But I am afraid that I can’t promise to live in Riseholme for ever in order that you may not lose your parlourmaid.’

‘But it’s not only that,’ said Georgie, aware of this acidity and hastening to sweeten it. ‘There’s you as well. It will be ditchwater at Riseholme without you.’

‘Thank you, Georgie,’ said Lucia. ‘I wondered if and when, as the lawyers say, you would think of that. No reason why you should, of course.’

Georgie felt that this was an unjust reproach.

‘Well, after all, you settled to live in Tilling,’ he retorted, ‘and said nothing about how dull it would be without me. And I’ve got to do without Foljambe as well.’

Lucia had recourse to the lowest artifice.

‘Georgie-orgie, ’oo not cwoss with me?’ she asked in an innocent, childish voice.

Georgie was not knocked out by this sentimental stroke below the belt. It was like Lucia to settle everything in exactly the way that suited her best, and then expect her poor pawns to be stricken at the thought of losing their queen. Besides, the loss of Foljambe had occurred to him first. Comfort, like charity, began at home.

‘No, I’m not cross,’ he said, utterly refusing to adopt baby-talk which implied surrender. ‘But I’ve got every right to be hurt with you for settling to live in Tilling and not saying a word about how you would miss me.’

‘My dear, I knew you would take that for granted,’ began Lucia.

‘Then why shouldn’t you take it for granted about me?’ he observed.

‘I ought to have,’ she said. ‘I confess it, so that’s all right. But why don’t you leave Riseholme too and settle here, Georgie? Foljambe, me, your career, now that Irene is so keen about your pictures, and this marvellous sense of not knowing what’s going to happen next. Such stimulus, such stuff to keep the soul awake. And you don’t want to go back to Riseholme: you said so yourself. You’d moulder and vegetate there.’

‘It’s different for you,’ said Georgie. ‘You’ve sold your house and I haven’t sold mine. But there it is: I shall go back, I suppose, without Foljambe or you – I mean you or Foljambe. I wish I had never come here at all. It was that week when we went back for the fête, leaving Cadman and her here, which did all the mischief.’