He was hitting the hard of his palm with the hammer. His manner almost suggested she had put him to shame.

‘But supposing she doesn’t read!’ she said. ‘At least I’ve seen her sitting with a book. And then I expect there are a few she is fond of. Things she must have inherited.’

Because his wife had embarrassed him, Ted Custance began shouldering her out of the room, and again she was surprised at the hardness of his body. What made their uneventful marriage so rewarding, was the fact that it was filled was little surprises. Sometimes Ted would not reach for the reading-lamp cord. Oh dear, she would protest, do you think we ought? But he would not answer. And although she hardly dared look, it always left her quietly younger.

Then it was Thursday, and it could only be the hire-car she heard, for Miss Docker had announced she would hire a car, on such an occasion, and a little van to fetch her oddments; a rocker, and a chest, and so forth, which could stand in the garage if not convenient, provided they were inspected regularly for white-ant.

Mrs Custance was so excited she shook the whole side of the house in running at the window.

It was, in fact, the hire car, and Miss Docker’s behind was getting out.

Mrs Custance rushed to make her welcome.

‘Well, now,’ Miss Docker was saying, ‘isn’t it lovely to be amongst friends? What would we do without them? I, for one, would be homeless in the world. Neat place they’ve got’ – she was addressing the hire-car man — ‘only, as a matter of personal taste, I would have painted it cream and green.’

The hire-car man was laughing, because, well, this was Miss Docker.

‘Here,’ she said, thrusting a box, ‘help yourself to a lolly. Don’t tell me there’s a man who hasn’t got a sweet tooth.’

Miss Docker, too, helped herself. The foil fell tinkling at her feet. And Mrs Custance stood. It was all in order, because Miss Docker had not yet finished with the hire-car man.

‘Ah dear, it is lovely,’ the visitor repeated, turning at last towards her friend.

Such loveliness as she implied remained this time in the abstract. Nor did Mrs Custance demand a clue. She realized how very shy she was feeling. Confronted with Miss Docker’s munching face, on which the hairs stirred, and the dust of a beige powder trembled, and the chaps were indenting the purple lipstick, Mrs Custance was altogether at a loss, except that, somewhere in the distance, she knew, lurked the other, darkbrown woman, under everything else, like the truth.

Now the substitute Miss Docker was staring back through expert eyes.

‘You are looking peaky,’ she decided. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘I?’ asked Mrs Custance, shocked.

‘Who else? Not Fisher’s Ghost!’

Here Miss Docker shrieked. She had walked inside the home. She had laid a hand on her friend’s arm.

‘It’s my sense of humour,’ she apologized. ‘You and I will have a laugh together. Oh, not all laugh,’ she said. ‘Wait till I get me sleeves rolled up. I was never one to avoid showing gratitude. You will not regret your good deed.’