Just then Hessell Mortlock came in.

‘I’m glad to see you haven’t altered, Betsy,’ he said, gallant as always.

‘Oh! I?’ Mrs Scudamore laughed it off. ‘But I’m glad to see you, both of you, looking so well and happy.’

Because she had never forgotten that happiness must be her philosophy of life.

‘You ought to be happy, too, in this charming house, full of such lovely things.’

She was soon walking through the rooms, aiming little sideways glances at the ‘things’.

‘What a priceless escritoire!’ she exclaimed. ‘It is genuine, isn’t it? Your wife must have had very good taste.’

‘Oh, Brenda!’ Mr Mortlock said. ‘That was before her time.’

He went away, and his wife was not sure, but felt he might be irritated by her mother’s exploration of the house.

One day Mr Mortlock came to his wife and said: ‘There’s something I wish you’d tell her, Anthea.’

‘What is it?’ she asked gently.

‘I wish she wouldn’t close the lid of the lavatory bowl. Not after the thing’s been in use.’

‘It seems to me a harmless habit,’ Mrs Mortlock suggested.

But he wrinkled up his face, and she couldn’t help seeing an old resentful baby, puzzled by some logic of the world.

‘Bottles up the smell!’ he persisted, and his resentful face was smelling it.

Although Mrs Mortlock found the matter most distasteful, she mentioned to her mother: ‘Mummy darling, after you’ve used the lavatory, would you mind not closing the lid.’

Mrs Scudamore was offended, not to say disgusted.

‘In the first place he needs a new seat. The hinges hardly serve their purpose. But quite apart from that, Anthea, you know we’ve always kept the lid closed!’

It was obvious that she alone might defend custom from vulgar assault.

‘Otherwise the room becomes – well, without wanting to be crude – frankly – smelly.’

‘I would rather you didn’t,’ Mrs Mortlock begged.

Mrs Scudamore did not answer, but screwed herself up inside her twin-set.

Mrs Scudamore continued to close the lid and Mr Mortlock to open it. Their principles made it difficult for them to face each other any more. And Mrs Mortlock realized her hair was falling out; she discovered handfuls of it in her comb.

By this time she found it necessary to devise little jobs and pastimes for her mother. She would produce some peas, and a colander, and say: ‘There, Mummy, it will help me a lot if you shell the peas.’

Once Mrs Scudamore shed some tears which fell into the colander.

‘I am not complaining, Anthea. I am not unhappy. But some of us have our crosses to bear.’

‘Is it my father?’ Mrs Mortlock asked, stiffening.

‘I am not saying,’ Mrs Scudamore said.

Then it was Mrs Mortlock’s turn to feel unhappy. Spasmodically she felt deeply so. Now it was for that dark man her father. If she had only been able to touch him, they might perhaps have pooled their secrets and discovered the reason for human confusion. But as that wasn’t possible, she went outside, into the garden.