‘Well it will be very awkward if you forget it all,’ said Georgie. ‘We can’t cheer nothing at all. Such a pity, because your voice carries perfectly now. I could hear you while I was breakfasting.’

‘And it’s not only that,’ said Daisy. ‘There’s no life in the thing. It doesn’t look as if it was happening.’

‘No, that’s true,’ said Georgie. ‘These tarsome shoes of mine are real enough, though!’

‘I begin to think we ought to have had a producer,’ said Daisy. ‘But it was so much finer to do it all ourselves, like – like Oberammergau. Does Lucia ever say anything about it? I think it’s too mean for words of her to take no interest in it.’

‘Well, you must remember that you asked her only to be my wife,’ said Georgie. ‘Naturally she wouldn’t like that.’

‘She ought to help us instead of going about as if we were all invisible,’ exclaimed Daisy.

‘My dear, she did offer to help you. At least, I told you ages ago, that I felt sure she would if you asked her to.’

‘I feel inclined to chuck the whole thing,’ said Daisy.

‘But you can’t. Masses of tickets have been sold. And who’s to pay for the Golden Hind and the roast sheep and all the costumes?’ asked Georgie. ‘Not to mention all our trouble. Why not ask her to help, if you want her to?’

‘Georgie, will you ask her?’ said Daisy.

‘Certainly not,’ said Georgie very firmly. ‘You’ve been managing it from the first. It’s your show. If I were you, I would ask her at once. She’ll be over here in a few minutes, as we’re going to have a music. Pop in.’

A melodious cry of ‘Georgino mio!’ resounded from the open window of Georgie’s drawing room, and he hobbled away down the garden walk. Ever since that beautiful understanding they had arrived at, that both of them shrank, as from a cup of hemlock, from the idea of marriage, they had talked Italian or baby language to a surprising extent from mere lightness of heart.

‘Me tummin’,’ he called. ‘’Oo very good girl, Lucia. ‘Oo molto punctuale.’

(He was not sure about that last word, nor was Lucia, but she understood it.)

‘Georgino! Che curiose scalpe!’ said Lucia, leaning out of the window.

‘Don’t be so cattiva. They are cattivo enough,’ said Georgie. ‘But Drake did have shoes exactly like these.’

The mere mention of Drake naturally caused Lucia to talk about something else. She did not understand any allusion to Drake.

‘Now for a good practice,’ she said, as Georgie limped into the drawing room. ‘Foljambe beamed at me. How happy it all is! I hope you said you were at home to nobody. Let us begin at once. Can you manage the sostenuto pedal in those odd shoes?’

Foljambe entered.

‘Mrs Quantock, sir,’ she said.