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éreintée, extended herself on the sofa, lighting a cigarette.

‘Here’s Celia, Mummy. Did you know she was coming? How delightful!’ Clive, from his place at the window, had stood looking over them all with his cool, aerial gaze, very much to his mother’s eye the hovering archangel, uncertain of where, on an ambiguous planet, to place his foot, and as he now left the room she suspected that it was with relief.

‘Celia who?’ Mrs. Jessup raised her eyes to enquire. ‘Will you have any neighbours you can talk to here?’

‘Why shouldn’t we? If we come here to live, why shouldn’t other intelligent people?’ Hester rejoined. ‘It’s Celia Bowen, a very old friend of Clive’s. She came to that party when Lionel played—don’t you remember?—and he evidently found her more worth talking to than any of us. She plays the violin.’ Hester spoke tersely.

‘The thin fair girl—who looked like Clive?—But I thought she’d died in Switzerland long ago! How dreadful of me!’ exclaimed Mrs. Jessup taking out her lip-stick and equipping her mouth for the new encounter.

‘Help my mother-in-law with the tea, Beppo,’ said Hester, and Mr. Gales sprang from the arm of