Sir Reuben Hergesheimer was describing to Minnie how a lunatic had appeared waving a placard and how he had taken for granted that it must be a suffragette and been astonished to find out that the agitation was on behalf of animals. ‘Votes for pheasants, I suppose.’

‘How absolutely disgraceful, the man should be horse-whipped,’ said Minnie vigorously.

‘He was just a crank,’ said Bob Lilburn. ‘There was really no cause for alarm.’

Sir Reuben smiled. ‘It is very hard to alarm Lady Nettleby.’

‘What an ungracious thing to say. I am very easily frightened. That six in spades you called last night made me feel quite faint with terror.’

‘You hadn’t seen my hand. We made it, didn’t we? You should have trusted me.’

‘I trust you in every possible way except at the bridge table. I have learnt to trust no one at cards. What about that time when you called three hearts to my one club and we lost the rubber to that terrible Russian couple?’

‘But that was fifteen years ago.’

‘Of course. In Marienbad. I have a memory like an elephant – more than an elephant, a brontosaurus – but only for cards. Now what about this horrible lunatic? Has he been shut up somewhere?’

‘I think Sir Randolph rather took to him.’

‘Took to him? What an extraordinary notion. How could he have done such a thing? He loves his shooting.’

‘It seems they had certain other interests in common. When I came on the scene the man was promising to introduce your husband to an anarchist printer in Dorking.’

‘That is so unlikely that I see at once it must be a perfectly convincing explanation for everything. How could they have got onto the subject, do you suppose?’

‘It was a bad show,’ said Bob Lilburn, still in tune with his hostess’s former mood and unable to understand how her view that the man should have been horse-whipped could coexist quite comfortably in her mind with the idea that it was rather delightful of her husband to have done nothing of the kind.

‘The man had some literature,’ said Sir Reuben. ‘I only caught a glimpse of it but it was something about universal unity – no, kinship, that was it, universal kinship.’

‘Good Heavens, ordinary kinship is bad enough, if one thinks of one’s relations, without having to have the whole universe as one’s kin. But still I can see that it might lead to just the sort of conversation Randolph likes. In fact, I’m astonished he didn’t bring him to lunch. I shall ask him about that, I shall chide him, I think, don’t you? He should have brought him to lunch. It might have been amusing.’

Bob Lilburn laughed, showing his even white teeth and thinking, really these grand old ladies are sometimes extraordinarily frivolous.

The lobster vol-au-vents consumed, the chicken mayonnaise with boiled potatoes before them, champagne or lemon squash in circulation, the conversation took its course with as much vivacity as was possible in view of the unevenness of numbers.