Mr Pointz had doubts of the essential Realness of the Gypsy in question but he gave indulgent assent.

‘Eve’s just crazy about the fair,’ said her father apologetically. ‘But don’t you pay any attention if you want to be getting along.’

‘Plenty of time,’ said Mr Pointz benignantly. ‘Let the little lady enjoy herself. I’ll take you on at darts, Leo.’

‘Twenty-five and over wins a prize,’ chanted the man in charge of the darts in a high nasal voice.

‘Bet you a fiver my total score beats yours,’ said Pointz.

‘Done,’ said Stein with alacrity.

The two men were soon whole-heartedly engaged in their battle.

Lady Marroway murmured to Evan Llewellyn:

‘Eve is not the only child in the party.’

Llewellyn smiled assent but somewhat absently.

He had been absent-minded all that day. Once or twice his answers had been wide of the point.

Pamela Marroway drew away from him and said to her husband:

‘That young man has something on his mind.’

Sir George murmured:

‘Or someone?’

And his glance swept quickly over Janet Rustington.

Lady Marroway frowned a little. She was a tall woman exquisitely groomed. The scarlet of her fingernails was matched by the dark red coral studs in her ears. Her eyes were dark and watchful. Sir George affected a careless ‘hearty English gentleman’ manner–but his bright blue eyes held the same watchful look as his wife’s.

Isaac Pointz and Leo Stein were Hatton Garden diamond merchants. Sir George and Lady Marroway came from a different world–the world of Antibes and Juan les Pins–of golf at St Jean-de-Luz–of bathing from the rocks at Madeira in the winter.

In outward seeming they were as the lilies that toiled not, neither did they spin. But perhaps this was not quite true. There are diverse ways of toiling and also of spinning.

‘Here’s the kid back again,’ said Evan Llewellyn to Mrs Rustington.

He was a dark young man–there was a faintly hungry wolfish look about him which some women found attractive.

It was difficult to say whether Mrs Rustington found him so. She did not wear her heart on her sleeve. She had married young–and the marriage had ended in disaster in less than a year. Since that time it was difficult to know what Janet Rustington thought of anyone or anything–her manner was always the same–charming but completely aloof.

Eve Leathern came dancing up to them, her lank fair hair bobbing excitedly. She was fifteen–an awkward child–but full of vitality.

‘I’m going to be married by the time I’m seventeen,’ she exclaimed breathlessly. ‘To a very rich man and we’re going to have six children and Tuesdays and Thursdays are my lucky days and I ought always to wear green or blue and an emerald is my lucky stone and–’

‘Why, pet, I think we ought to be getting along,’ said her father.