In my intense excitement something had to go. What went was the currant loaf. It slipped from my clutches. I made a dive after it and lost my stick, which clattered to the pavement, and I slipped and nearly fell myself.

It was the strong arm of the goddess that caught and held me. I began to stammer:

“Th-thanks awfully, I’m f-f-frightfully sorry.”

She had retrieved the currant loaf and handed it to me together with the stick. And then she smiled kindly and said cheerfully:

“Don’t mention it. No trouble, I assure you,” and the magic died completely before the flat, competent voice.

A nice healthy-looking well set-up girl, no more.

I fell to reflecting what would have happened if the Gods had given Helen of Troy exactly those flat accents. How strange that a girl could trouble your inmost soul so long as she kept her mouth shut, and that the moment she spoke the glamour could vanish as though it had never been.

I had known the reverse happen, though. I had seen a little sad monkey-faced woman whom no one would turn to look at twice. Then she opened her mouth and suddenly enchantment had lived and bloomed and Cleopatra had cast her spell anew.

Joanna had drawn up at the kerb beside me without my noticing her arrival. She asked if there was anything the matter.

“Nothing,” I said, pulling myself together. “I was reflecting on Helen of Troy and others.”

“What a funny place to do it,” said Joanna. “You looked most odd, standing there clasping currant bread to your breast with your mouth wide open.”

“I’ve had a shock,” I said. “I have been transplanted to Ilium and back again.”

“Do you know who that is?” I added, indicating a retreating back that was swimming gracefully away.

Peering after the girl Joanna said that it was the Symmingtons’ nursery governess.

“Is that what struck you all of a heap?” she asked. “She’s good-looking, but a bit of a wet fish.”

“I know,” I said. “Just a nice kind girl. And I’d been thinking her Aphrodite.”

Joanna opened the door of the car and I got in.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” she said. “Some people have lots of looks and absolutely no S.A. That girl has. It seems such a pity.”

I said that if she was a nursery governess it was probably just as well.

Three

I

That afternoon we went to tea with Mr. Pye.

Mr. Pye was an extremely ladylike plump little man, devoted to his petit point chairs, his Dresden shepherdesses and his collection of bric-à-brac. He lived at Prior’s Lodge in the grounds of which were the ruins of the old Priory.

Prior’s Lodge was certainly a very exquisite house and under Mr. Pye’s loving care it showed to its best advantage. Every piece of furniture was polished and set in the exact place most suited to it. The curtains and cushions were of exquisite tone and colour, and of the most expensive silks.