Martyn said she did.

‘Good. Now, put me into that pink thing and let us know the worst about it, shall we?’

When she was dressed she stood before the cheval-glass and looked with cold intensity at her image. ‘My God,’ she said, ‘the lighting had better be good.’

Martyn said: ‘Isn’t it right? It looks lovely to me.’

‘My poor girl!’ she muttered. ‘You run to my husband and ask him for cigarettes. He’s got my case. I need a stimulant.’

Martyn hurried into the passage and tapped at the next door. ‘So they are married,’ she thought. ‘He must be ten years younger than she is but they’re married and he still sends her orchids in the morning.’

The deep voice shouted impatiently: ‘Come in!’ and she opened the door and went in.

The little dresser was putting Poole into a dinner jacket. Their backs were turned to Martyn. ‘Yes?’ Poole said.

‘Miss Hamilton would like her cigarette-case, if you please.’

‘I haven’t got it,’ he said and shouted: ‘Ella!’

‘Hallo, darling?’

‘I haven’t got your case.’

There was a considerable pause. The voice beyond the wall called: ‘No, no. Ben’s got it. Mr Bennington, Martyn.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Martyn said, and made for the door, conscious of the little dresser’s embarrassment and of Poole’s annoyance.

Mr Clark Bennington’s room was on the opposite side of the passage and next to the greenroom. On her entrance Martyn was abruptly and most unpleasantly transported into the immediate past—into yesterday with its exhaustion, muddle and panic, to the moment of extreme humiliation when Fred Badger had smelt brandy on her breath. Mr Bennington’s flask was open on his dressing-shelf and he was in the act of entertaining a thickset gentleman with beautifully groomed white hair, wearing a monocle, in a strikingly handsome face. This person set down his tumbler and gazed in a startled fashion at Martyn.

‘It’s not,’ he said, evidently picking up, with some difficulty, the conversation she had interrupted, ‘it’s not that I would for the world interfere, Ben, dear boy. Nor do I enjoy raising what is no doubt a delicate subject in these particular circumstances. But I feel for the child damnably, you know. Damnably. Moreover, it does rather appear that the doctor never loses an opportunity to upset her.’

‘I couldn’t agree more, old boy, and I’m bloody angry about it. Yes, dear, wait a moment, will you?’ Mr Bennington rejoined, running his speeches together and addressing them to no one in particular. ‘This is my wife’s new dresser, J.G.’

‘Really?’ Mr J. G. Darcey responded and bowed politely to Martyn. ‘Good morning, child. See you later, Ben, my boy. Thousand thanks.’

He rose, looked kindly at Martyn, dropped his monocle, passed his hand over his hair and went out, breaking into operatic song in the passage.

Mr Bennington made a half-hearted attempt to put his flask out of sight and addressed himself to Martyn.