Lynn smiled. Ever since she could remember, Gordon Cloade's secretaries, housekeepers and office staff had been subjected to the closest scrutiny and suspicion.

She asked curiously, "She's good-looking, I suppose?"

"Well, dear," said Adela, "I think myself she has rather a silly face."

"You're not a man, Mums!"

"Of course," Mrs Marchmont went on, "the poor girl was blitzed and had shock from blast and was really frightfully ill and all that, and it's my opinion she's never really quite recovered. She's a mass of nerves, if you know what I mean. And really, sometimes, she looks quite half- witted. I don't feel she could ever have made much of a companion for poor Gordon."

Lynn smiled. She doubted whether Gordon Cloade had chosen to marry a woman years younger than himself for her intellectual companionship.

"And then, dear," Mrs Marchmont lowered her voice, "I hate to say it, but of course she's not a lady!"

"What an expression, Mums! What does that matter nowadays?"

"It still matters in the country, dear," said Adela placidly. "I simply mean that she isn't exactly one of us."

"Poor little devil!"

"Really, Lynn, I don't know what you mean. We have all been most careful to be kind and polite and to welcome her amongst us for Gordon's sake."

"She's at Furrowbank, then?" Lynn asked curiously.

"Yes, naturally. Where else was there for her to go when she came out of the nursing home? The doctors said she must be out of London. She's at Furrowbank with her brother."

"What's he like?" Lynn asked.

"A dreadful young man!" Mrs Marchmont paused, and then added with a good deal of intensity: "Rude."

A momentary flicker of sympathy crossed Lynn's mind. She thought: "I bet I'd be rude in his place!"

She asked: "What's his name?"

"Hunter. David Hunter. Irish, I believe. Of course they are not people one has ever heard of. She was a widow - a Mrs Underhay. One doesn't wish to be uncharitable, but one can't help asking oneself - what kind of a widow would be likely to be travelling about from South America in wartime? One can't help feeling, you know, that she was just looking for a rich husband."

"In which case, she didn't look in vain," remarked Lynn.

Mrs Marchmont sighed.

"It seems so extraordinary. Gordon was such a shrewd man always. And it wasn't, I mean, that women hadn't tried. That last secretary but one, for instance. Really quite blatant. She was very efficient, I believe, but he had to get rid other."

Lynn said vaguely: "I suppose there's always a Waterloo."

"Sixty-two," said Mrs Marchmont. "A very dangerous age. And a war, I imagine, is unsettling. But I can't tell you what a shock it was when we got his letter from New York."

"What did it say exactly?"

"He wrote to Frances - I really can't think why. Perhaps he imagined that owing to her upbringing she might be more sympathetic. He said that we'd probably be surprised to hear that he was married. It had all been rather sudden, but he was sure we should all soon grow very fond of Rosaleen (such a very theatrical name, don't you think, dear? I mean definitely rather bogus). She had had a very sad life, he said, and had gone through a lot although she was so young. Really it was wonderful the plucky way she had stood up to life."