So Mitzi was brought in and Julia poured her out a glass of sherry.

“Here’s to the best cook in the world,” said Patrick.

Mitzi was gratified—but felt nevertheless that a protest was due.

“That is not so. I am not really a cook. In my country I do intellectual work.”

“Then you’re wasted,” said Patrick. “What’s intellectual work compared to a chef d’oeuvre like Delicious Death?”

“Oo—I say to you I do not like—”

“Never mind what you like, my girl,” said Patrick. “That’s my name for it and here’s to it. Let’s all drink to Delicious Death and to hell with the aftereffects.”

III

“Phillipa, my dear, I want to talk to you.”

“Yes, Miss Blacklock?”

Phillipa Haymes looked up in slight surprise.

“You’re not worrying about anything, are you?”

“Worrying?”

“I’ve noticed that you’ve looked worried lately. There isn’t anything wrong, is there?”

“Oh no, Miss Blacklock. Why should there be?”

“Well—I wondered. I thought, perhaps, that you and Patrick—?”

“Patrick?” Phillipa looked really surprised.

“It’s not so, then. Please forgive me if I’ve been impertinent. But you’ve been thrown together a lot—and although Patrick is my cousin, I don’t think he’s the type to make a satisfactory husband. Not for some time to come, at all events.”

Phillipa’s face had frozen into a hard immobility.

“I shan’t marry again,” she said.

“Oh, yes, you will some day, my child. You’re young. But we needn’t discuss that. There’s no other trouble. You’re not worried about—money, for instance?”

“No, I’m quite all right.”

“I know you get anxious sometimes about your boy’s education. That’s why I want to tell you something. I drove into Milchester this afternoon to see Mr. Beddingfeld, my lawyer. Things haven’t been very settled lately and I thought I would like to make a new will—in view of certain eventualities. Apart from Bunny’s legacy, everything goes to you, Phillipa.”

“What?” Phillipa spun round. Her eyes stared. She looked dismayed, almost frightened.

“But I don’t want it—really I don’t … Oh, I’d rather not … And anyway, why? Why to me?”

“Perhaps,” said Miss Blacklock in a peculiar voice, “because there’s no one else.”

“But there’s Patrick and Julia.”

“Yes, there’s Patrick and Julia.” The odd note in Miss Blacklock’s voice was still there.

“They are your relations.”

“Very distant ones. They have no claim on me.”

“But I—I haven’t either—I don’t know what you think … Oh, I don’t want it.”

Her gaze held more hostility than gratitude. There was something almost like fear in her manner.