‘Later on, after Alleyn had gone and you went indoors, I talked to her. She was sort of different,’ said poor George. ‘Well, damned hard. Sort of almost suggesting – well, I mean it wasn’t exactly the thing.’

‘I wish you would contrive to be more articulate. She suggested that it wouldn’t be long before you’d pay your addresses?’

‘Er – er –’

‘And then?’

‘I suppose I looked a bit taken aback. I don’t know what I said. And then – it really was pretty frightful – she sort of began, not exactly hinting but – well –’

‘Hinting,’ Lady Lacklander said, ‘will do.’

‘– that if the police found Chapter 7 they’d begin to think that I – that we – that –’

‘Yes, George. We understand. Motive.’

‘It really was frightful. I said I thought it would be better if we didn’t sort of meet much. It was just that I suddenly felt I couldn’t. Only that, I assure you, Mama. I assure you, Octavius.’

‘Yes, yes,’ they said. ‘All right, George.’

‘And then, when I said that, she suddenly looked,’ George said this with an unexpected flash, ‘like a snake.’

‘And you, my poor boy,’ his mother added, ‘looked, no doubt, like the proverbial rabbit.’

‘I feel I’ve behaved like one, anyway,’ George rejoined with a unique touch of humour.

‘You’ve behaved very badly, of course,’ his mother said without rancour. ‘You’ve completely muddled your values. Just like poor Maurice himself, only he went still further. You led a completely unscrupulous trollop to suppose that if she was a widow you’d marry her. You would certainly have bored her even more than poor Maurice, but Occy will forgive me if I suggest that your title and your money and Nunspardon offered sufficient compensation. You may, on second thoughts, even have attracted her, George,’ his mother added. ‘I mustn’t, I suppose, underestimate your simple charms.’ She contemplated her agonized son for a few minutes and then said: ‘It all comes to this, and I said as much to Kettle a few days ago: we can’t afford to behave shabbily, George. We’ve got to stick to our own standards, such as they are, and we daren’t muddle our values. Let’s hope Mark and Rose between them will pick up the pieces.’ She turned to Mr Phinn. ‘If any good has come out of this dreadful affair, Occy,’ she said, ‘it is this. You have crossed the Chyne after I don’t know how many years and paid a visit to Nunspardon. God knows we have no right to expect it. We can’t make amends, Occy. We can’t pretend to try. And there it is. It’s over, as they say nowadays, to you.’ She held out her hand and Mr Phinn after a moment’s hesitation came forward to take it.

II