The young American chuckled and gave Tubby a shove. “Don’t you know—he’s a newspaper reporter for the Daily Mail. It’s his job to dig up scoops.”

I felt anger welling up inside me. I have been brought up to control my emotions (a lady is in control at all times; a lady never shows what she is feeling) but I blurted out, “You should be ashamed of yourself. Pretending to be chummy with me just so you can print horrid things in your newspaper about my mother and my family. You can count me out of your quoits and any other game you want to play.”

And I stalked off. I heard Tubby say to the American, “You’ve well and truly put your foot in it for me this time, old sport.”

“I think you did that pretty well yourself,” was the reply.

Thank heavens I hadn’t succumbed to his easy friendliness enough to tell him about Mummy’s Reno divorce trip. She’d never have forgiven me. I decided that she would be up by now and made my way to her stateroom. As I tapped on her door I thought I heard voices. I opened the door cautiously.

“Mummy, are you up?” I called.

“Come on in, darling,” Mummy called. “I’m not only up, I have visitors.”

I came into the room to see Cy Goldman and Stella Brightwell sitting on the sofa opposite my mother. The room was heavy with cigar smoke. Mummy was sitting up, fully dressed, face made up perfectly, looking very prim and proper, not sprawled across the armchair the way she usually sat.

“You remember our table companions from last night, Mr. Goldman and Miss Brightwell, don’t you, Georgie? It seems they have staterooms just down the hall from mine. I must say the accommodations are splendid on the ship, aren’t they?”

“Cy finds them quite cramped.” Stella laughed. “But then you should see the size of Alhambra Two.”

“Alhambra Two?”

Stella gave Cy Goldman a challenging look.

“She means the place I’m building above Malibu. Just because I’m incorporating parts of old Spanish buildings into it Stella has dubbed it Alhambra Two. Actually it doesn’t have a name yet.” He looked up at me and patted the sofa beside him. “You’re just the person we need, young lady. Take a seat. We’re trying to persuade your mother to be in our movie. But for some reason she’s the one person in the world who doesn’t want to be a movie star.”

“So silly, darling,” Mummy said. “What would Max think? What would anyone think? They’d say I was a has-been, trying to make a comeback.”

“On the contrary,” Stella said. “They’d be amazed that you still look so young and gorgeous.”