‘Dear gossipy one,’ she said, ‘I believe I know what you mean. Georgie came to paint in the garden-room, as he so often does –’

‘Do you call him Georgie?’ asked Diva in an eager parenthesis.

‘Yes, I fancy that’s his name, and he calls me Elizabeth.’

‘No!’ said Diva.

‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Do not interrupt me, dear… I happened to be at the window as he rang the bell, and I just popped my head out, and told him he was a naughty boy not to walk straight in.’

‘In baby-talk?’ asked Diva. ‘Like Lucia?’

‘Like any baby you chance to mention,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Why not?’

‘But with her sitting in her car just below?’

‘Yes, dear, it so happened that she was just coming to leave an invitation on me for her house-warming tonight. Are you going?’

‘Yes, of course, everybody is. But how could you do it?’

Elizabeth sat wrapped in thought.

‘I’m beginning to see what you mean,’ she said at length. ‘But what an absurd notion. You mean, don’t you, that dear Lulu thinks – goodness, how ridiculous – that I was mimicking her.’

‘Nobody knows what she thinks,’ said Diva. ‘She’s not been seen this morning.’

‘But gracious goodness me, what have I done?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘Why this excitement? Is there a law that only Mrs Lucas of Grebe may call Georgie, Georgie? So ignorant of me if there is. Ought I to call him Frederick? And pray, why shouldn’t I talk baby-talk? Another law perhaps. I must get a book of the laws of England.’

‘But you knew she was in the car just below you and must have heard.’

Elizabeth was now in possession of what she wanted to know. Diva was quite a decent barometer of Tilling weather, and the weather was stormy.

‘Rubbish, darling,’ she said. ‘You are making mountains out of molehills. If Lulu heard – and I don’t know that she did, mind – what cause of complaint has she? Mayn’t I say Georgie? Mayn’t I say “vewy naughty boy”? Let us hear no more about it. You will see this evening how wrong you all are. Lulu will be just as sweet and cordial as ever. And you will hear with your own ears how Georgie calls me Elizabeth.’

These were brave words, and they very fitly represented the stout heart that inspired them. Tilling had taken her conduct to be equivalent to an act of war, exactly as she had meant it to be, and if anyone thought that E. M. was afraid they were wrong… Then there was that matter of Mr Wyse’s letter, resigning from the hanging committee. She must tap the barometer again.