“Now, Sabrina, you’re overwrought and hysterical.” Aunt Effie laid an urgent arm about her. “I want you to come along to your room and lie down quietly till dinner time.”

But Sabrina broke away from her to catch desperately at George’s sleeve.

“Oh, please don’t shut me out of here again!” she begged. “The room is alive, can’t you feel that? You’ve no right to put it in a shroud! Besides, your brother likes me to be here, I know he does, and surely if you explained to your mother—”

“Sabrina, be quiet!” cried Aunt Effie, and in desperation caught her arm and began to pull her towards the door. “You are putting Mr. Shenstone in a most uncomfortable situation. You must understand that his mother has a—a sentiment about the room now, and it’s very wrong of you to insist on intruding! I can’t think what’s got into you about this room—!” She broke off with a little gasp. Over Sabrina’s shoulder, her eyes met George Shenstone’s slightly strained and protruding gaze. The same thought was in both their minds. A room at the club—a room here at Nuns Farthing—both of them Hilary’s—and both of them queer.

“Cut it short, George, and clear out of here,” said Hilary from the background. “You’ve done enough damage for one day.”

“I’m sorry to put you to all this trouble,” said George, for the sake of saying something commonplace and normal in the midst of all this hysteria. “I shan’t be long now, I’ll just draw the curtains—” He turned away from Aunt Effie’s startled eyes without, he hoped, allowing her to perceive that he was thinking the same thing she was. Much better if he hadn’t mentioned that business at the club.... He was conscious of an overpowering desire to be on the way back to Town again, pelting along in the noisy green Bentley — yes, with a drink in sight somewhere on the way.

“You’ll find me in the south drawing-room,” said Aunt Effie. “I’ll just tuck up this silly girl under an eiderdown, and wait for you downstairs, in case there’s anything else—”

Thwarted, rebellious, convinced of some deliberate conspiracy against herself, and against Hilary if it came to that, Sabrina allowed Aunt Effie to lead her away towards her own room. She glanced back from the top of the stairs, and saw George reaching to draw the curtains across the sunny window by the desk, and noticed how his coat pulled in ugly straining wrinkles across his ugly fat back....

CHAPTER THIRTEEN