‘Door!’ he shouted.

It banged again, and this time stayed closed.

He wrinkled his nose at the pungent reminder of her visit she had left upon the air, and sighed heavily. Humanity could be very disappointing. But as he sipped the invigorating tea his glance fell on the stout stick with which he had walked all yesterday, and he remembered that he had planned to hoist one of his Universal Kinship posters on it and interrupt the shoot. He had imagined himself followed by a small crowd of sympathizers, but this it now looked as if he might have to do without. Perhaps the point was more dramatically made by a single individual. And now as the peppermint tea took its refreshing course through his system and the open curtains disclosed a glint of sunshine, his imagination leapt ahead to the possibilities of the day. What if there were to be a philanthropic millionaire among the slaughtering landowner’s guests? ‘I congratulate you, Mr Cardew, on the independence and moral worth of your protest. Allow me to offer you a small cheque towards the expenses of any of your endeavours, more particularly should they chance to lie in the educational field.’ Or Royalty. He had been told that the King often shot there. A pity English Royalty was always so philistine. What about the King’s foreign relations, an archduke, the Kaiser himself maybe? The Germans were often very good on education, though sometimes a little on the authoritarian side. ‘Allow me, Herr Cardew, to set up a small international trust, with unlimited funds for co-educational progressive schools, the vanguard, the prototype so to speak, of the new world order.’

‘Your Imperial Majesty is too kind.’

Laughing wildly Cornelius jumped out of bed, made an elaborate obeisance in front of the cracked mirror, then going to the door shouted energetically for the girl to bring him some hot shaving water.

Sir Randolph, up early as he always was on shooting mornings and thinking he might deal with one or two letters before breakfast, walked along the passage towards his study. He was surprised to hear voices from the billiard room; even more surprised on opening the door to find Gilbert Hartlip, accompanied by two men of unfamiliar aspect, in the act of aiming a gun at the head of Julius Caesar which surmounted a large wall cupboard containing billiard cues.

‘Ah Gilbert, yes, yes, sorry, I didn’t realize it was you.’ Sir Randolph, embarrassed, attempted to retreat.

Gilbert, also embarrassed, smiled his never very convincing smile.

‘My dear fellow, do forgive me. I wasn’t about to take a pot shot at a Roman Emperor. One of my loaders hasn’t been with me very long and with these new guns I thought we’d just have a minute or two’s drill, don’t you know.’

‘Shouldn’t have thought you needed it, seemed to go like clockwork yesterday.’ Sir Randolph backed out of the room, hand on the door knob. ‘Wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Caesar I mean. Only one of those casts, you know, one gets them at the British Museum. No value, no value at all. Not that you’d have been loaded anyway.’ He shut the door. ‘At least I hope you wouldn’t,’ he muttered, continuing on his way towards the study. He supposed there was nothing like being a perfectionist. He was a funny fellow, Hartlip, all the same.