Chapter Twenty-Two

 

But after all, he had to admit long before the evening was over, she wasn't a bad old thing by any manner of means.  A bit blancmangeish, of course; but really very decent.  She was going to give him all the volumes of the Loeb Classics that had been in her husband's library.  And the Oxford Press edition of Donne.  And Saintsbury's two volumes of Minor Caroline Poets.  And on top of being kind, she wasn't even such a fool.  True, she had confessed to being unable to sing 'Abide with me' without crying; but she also liked George Herbert.  And though she had an exasperating habit of referring to everyone she knew as 'dear So-and-so', or at the very worst and most uncharitable as 'poor dear', she had quite a sense of humour, and some of the stories she told were really very funny.

      But her most precious gift was that she never made you feel shy.  In that respect she was like Uncle Eustace; and in both of them, it seemed to Sebastian, the secret consisted in a certain absence of pretentiousness, a refraining from standing on rights or privileges or dignity.  Whereas that fiendish old Queen Mother didn't merely stand on her own dignity; she went out and deliberately trampled on yours.  And more subtly, for all her desirableness, Mrs Thwale did the same thing.  It was as though she were always using you, in some way or other, as a means to further her own private ends - and the ends were disquietingly mysterious and unpredictable.  Whereas with Mrs Ockham it was you who were the end, and all she asked was to be allowed to be the adoring means of your glorification.  Which was really rather pleasant.  So pleasant, indeed, that Sebastian soon did more than merely cease to be shy with her; he began to show off and lay down the law.  Except for Susan - and Susan didn't really count - he had never known anyone who was ready to listen so respectfully to what he had to say.  Stimulated by her admiration, and quite unhindered by Mr Tendring, who never put in a word and allowed his presence to be completely ignored, he became, especially after his second glass of wine, extraordinarily loquacious.  And when his own ideas failed him, he did not hesitate to fall back on Uncle Eustace's.  His remarks about the affinity between Mid-Victorian English and Italian Primitive were thought to be very startling and brilliant.  Still, even with the wine to give him courage and take away discretion, he didn't venture to repeat what Uncle Eustace had said in connection with Piero's Venus and her Adonis.  It was Mrs Ockham who finally broke the silence that had settled down on them as they stood looking at the picture after dinner.

      'Art's a funny thing,' she said, pensively shaking her head.  'Very funny indeed, sometimes.'

      Sebastian gave her an amused and pitying smile.  Her remark had made him feel delightfully superior.

      'Works of art aren't moral tracts,' he said sententiously.

      'Oh, I know, I know,' Mrs Ockham agreed.  'But all the same ...'

      'All the same what?'

      'Well, why bother about that sort of thing so much?'

      She hadn't bothered - except, of course, negatively, inasmuch as she'd always felt that the whole business was profoundly unpleasant.  And, in spite of her mother's vague but fearful warnings about the male sex, her darling Francis had really bothered very little.  So why did other people find it necessary to think and talk so much about it, to write all those books and poems, to paint such pictures as this thing they were now looking at?  Pictures which, if they weren't Great Art, one would never dream of tolerating in a decent house, where innocent boys like Frankie, like Sebastian here ...

      'Sometimes,' she went on, 'I just cannot understand ...'

      'Excuse me,' Mr Tendring broke in, suddenly pushing his way between them and the mythological nudities.

      Horizontally first, then vertically, he applied a tape-measure to the painting.  Then, taking the pencil from between his pearly teeth, he made an entry in his notebook: Oil Painting: Antony and Cleopatra.  Antique.  41 ins. x 20½ ins.  Framed.

      'Thanks,' he said, and passed on to the Seurat.  Twenty-six by sixteen; and the frame, instead of being gilded and genuine hand-carved, was the cheapest-looking thing, painted in different colours, like one of those camouflaged ships during the war.

      Mrs Ockham led Sebastian away to the sofa and, while they sipped their coffee, began to ask him about his father.

      'He didn't get on too well with poor dear Eustace, did he?'

      'He hated Uncle Eustace.'

      Mrs Ockham was shocked.

      'You mustn't say that, Sebastian.'

      'But it's true,' he insisted.

      And when she started trying to smother the whole thing in that soft sentimental blancmange of hers - mooing away about brothers not seeing eye to eye perhaps, but never hating one another, never really forgetting that they were brothers - he became annoyed.

      'You don't know my father,' he snapped.

      And forgetting all about the heroic portrait he had painted for the benefit of Gabriel Weyl, Sebastian launched out into an embittered account of John Barnack's character and behaviour.  Greatly distressed, Mrs Ockham tried to persuade him that it was all just a case of misunderstanding.  When he was older he would realize that his father had always acted with the best intentions.  But the only effect of these well-meaning interventions was to stimulate Sebastian to a greater intemperance of language.  Then, by a natural transition, his resentment modulated into complaint.  He felt all at once extraordinarily sorry for himself, and began to say so.

      Mrs Ockham was touched.  Even if Mr Barnack wasn't as bad as he had been painted, even if he were nothing worse than a busy man with harsh manners and no time for affection, that would be quite enough to make a sensitive child unhappy.  More than ever, as she listened to Sebastian, she felt convinced that it was God who had brought them together - the poor motherless boy, the poor mother who had lost her child - brought them together that they might held one another and, helping one another, might be strengthened to do God's work in the world.

      Meanwhile, Sebastian had begun to tell the story of the evening clothes.

      Mrs Ockham remembered how adorable Frankie had looked in the dinner jacket she had bought him for his thirteenth birthday.  So grown-up, so touchingly childish.  Her eyes filled with tears.  But in the meantime it really did seem hard on poor Sebastian that his father should sacrifice him to a mere political prejudice.

      'Oh, how sweet of dear old Eustace to give it you!' she cried, when he reached that point in the story.

      Sebastian was offended by her cheerful all's-well-that-ends-well tone.

      'Uncle Eustace only promised,' he said gloomily.  'Then ... well, this thing happened.'

      'So you never got it after all?'

      He shook his head.

      'Poor darling, you do have bad luck!'

      To Sebastian, in his mood of self-pity, her commiseration was a balm.  To be told, in that tone, that he had had bad luck was so delightful that it would be almost sacrilegious to mention the drawing, the two thousand two hundred lire, the visit to the tailor's.  Indeed, it never even occurred to him that they ought to be mentioned.  In the present circumstances of mood and feeling these things were irrelevant to the point of being practically non-existent.  Then, suddenly, they jumped out into the foreground of immediate reality.  Mrs Ockham leaned forward and laid her hand on his knee; her soft snubby face was transfigured by a smile of intense yearning tenderness.

      'Sebastian, I've got a favour to ask of you.'

      He smiled charmingly and raised a questioning eyebrow.

      'Eustace made you a promise,' she explained.  'A promise he wasn't able to keep.  But I can keep it.  Will you allow me, Sebastian?'

      He looked at her for a moment, uncertain whether he had understood her aright.  Then, as it became clear that her words could have only one meaning, the blood rushed up into his cheeks.

      'You mean ... about the evening clothes?'

      He averted his eyes in confusion.

      'I'd so love to do it,' she said.

      'It's awfully decent of you,' he muttered.  'But really ...'

      'After all, it was one of poor Eustace's last wishes.'

      'I know, but ...'

      He hesitated, wondering whether to tell her about the drawing.  But she might think, as that Weyl fellow had obviously thought, that he oughtn't to have sold it - not so quickly, not immediately after the funeral.  And to her he couldn't say it was for a debt of honour.  Besides, if he were going to mention the drawing at all, he ought to have done it long ago.  To mention it now would be to admit that he had been enjoying her sympathy and inviting her generosity on false pretences.  And what a fool he would seem, as well as a humbug!

      'After all,' said Mrs Ockham, who had attributed his hesitation to a quite understandable reluctance to accept a present from a stranger, 'after all, I'm really part of the family.  A step-first cousin, to be precise.'

      What delicate feelings he had!  More tenderly than ever, she smiled at him again.

      From the depths of his discomfort Sebastian tried to smile back.  It was too late to explain now.  There was nothing for it but to go ahead.

      'Well, if you really think it's all right,' he said.

      'Oh, good, good!' cried Mrs Ockham.  'Then we'll go to the tailor's together.  That will be fun, wont' it?'

      He nodded and said it would be great fun.

      'It must be the best tailor in town.'

      'I noticed one in the Via Tornabuoni,' he said, determined at any cost to head her off from the place near the cathedral.

      But what a fool he had been to get rid of the drawing in such a hurry!  Instead of waiting to see what might turn up.  And now he'd be landed with two evening suits.  And it wasn't as though he could save up one of them for use later on.  In a couple of years he'd have grown out of both.  Well, after all, it didn't really matter.

      'When we're back in London,' said Mrs Ockham, 'I hope you'll come and dine with me sometimes in your evening clothes.'

      'I'd love to,' he said politely.

      'You'll be my excuse for going to all the plays and concerts I never have the heart or the energy to go to by myself.'

      Plays and concerts ... His eyes brightened at the prospect.

      They began talking about music.  Mrs Ockham, it seemed, had been a great concert-goer when her husband was alive, had travelled to Salzburg for Mozart and the moderns, to Bayreuth for Wagner, to Milan for Otello and Falstaff.  Against these achievements Sebastian could only set a few poor evenings at the Queen's Hall.  In mere self-defence he found himself compelled to expatiate, with a kind of boastful possessiveness, on the wonderful playing of an old pianist friend of his own, retired now from the concert stage, but as brilliant as ever - Dr Pfeiffer by name; she had probably heard of him.  No?  But in his day he had enjoyed a European reputation.

      In the background, meanwhile, Mr Tendring had measured all the paintings and was now working his way through the porcelain, jade and ivory.  Thousands of pounds, he said to himself from time to time, lingering voluptuously over the Cockney dipthongs, thousands of pounds.... He felt extraordinarily happy.

      At a quarter past ten there was a sudden commotion in the hall, and a moment later, as from a ghostly parade ground, the Queen Mother's voice came to their ears.

      'There's poor dear Granny,' said Mrs Ockham, interrupting Sebastian in the middle of a sentence.

      She rose and hurried towards the door.  In the hall, Mrs Gamble's maid had just divested the old lady of her wrap and was in the process of handing over the Pomeranian.

      'Little Foxy-woxy,' cried the Queen Mother.  'Did he miss his old granny-wanny?  Did he, then?'

      Foxy VIII licked her chin, then turned to bark at the newcomer.

      'Granny dear!'

      Scintillating like a whole chandelier of diamonds, Mrs Gamble wheeled in the direction of the voice.

      'Is that Daisy?' she rasped enquiringly.

      And when Mrs Ockham had said yes, she presented her with a withered brick-red cheek, lowering Foxy, as she did so, out of range, so that her granddaughter might not be bitten as she paid her respects.

      Mrs Ockham kissed her safely.

      'How nice to see you!' she said through the yapping.

      'Why is your nose so cold?' the Queen Mother asked sharply.  'You haven't got a chill, I hope?'

      Mrs Ockham assured her that she had never felt better, then turned to Mrs Thwale, who had remained standing a little to one side, a silent, bright-eyed, faintly smiling spectator.

      'And here's dear little Veronica,' she said, holding out both her hands.

      Mrs Thwale took the cue and offered both of hers.

      'Looking more beautiful than ever,' exclaimed Mrs Ockham in a tone of wholehearted admiration.

      'Now, Daisy,' rasped the Queen Mother, 'for goodness' sake, stop gushing like a schoolgirl.'

      To hear other people complimented in her presence was distasteful to her.  But instead of taking the hint, Mrs Ockham proceeded to deepen her original offence.

      'I'm not gushing,' she protested, as she took her grandmother's arm and started with her towards the drawing-room.  'It's the simple truth.'

      The Queen Mother snorted angrily.

      'I've never seen Veronica look so radiant as she does tonight.'

      Well, if that was true, Mrs Thwale was thinking, as she followed them, it meant that she had been living in a fool's paradise.  Flattering herself with the conviction that she had built up an ironclad facial alibi, when in fact she could still be read like an open book.

      She frowned to herself.  It was bad enough to have a hypothetical God, unto whom all hearts were open, all desires known.  But to be known and open to Daisy Ockham, of all people - that was the ultimate humiliation.

      True, there were excuses.  It wasn't every evening that one was proposed to by Paul De Vries.  But, on the other hand, it was precisely on the exceptional and important occasions that it was most necessary to keep other people in ignorance of what one was really feeling.  And she had permitted the symptoms of her elation to appear so clearly that even a fat old goose like Daisy could detect them.  Not that much harm had been done this time.  But it just showed how careful one had to be, how sleeplessly vigilant.

      Mrs Thwale frowned once more; then, as she relaxed her facial muscles, made a conscious effort to assume an expression of detached indifference.  No more of that telltale radiance.  For the outside world, nothing but the opaque symbol of a rather distant and amused politeness.  But behind it, for herself, what gay bright secrets, what an effervescence of unuttered laughter and private triumph!

      It had happened after dinner, when old Lord Worplesden, who was an amateur astronomer, insisted on taking Mrs Thwale and the little Contessina up to the top of the tower on which he had installed his six-inch refracting telescope.  A first-rate instrument, he boasted.  By Zeiss of Jena.  But among the young ladies of the neighbourhood it was celebrated for other reasons.  The star-gazer would take you in, under the dome of his baby observatory, and then, under the pretext of getting you and the telescope into the right position for seeing the satellites of Jupiter would paw you about, booming away all the time about Galileo.  Then, if you hadn't objected too much, he'd show you the rings of Saturn.  And finally there were the spiral nebulae.  These required at least ten minutes of the most laborious adjustment.  Girls who had seen a spiral nebula got a big bottle of scent the next day, with a playful invitation, embossed with a coronet and signed, 'Yours very affectionately, W.,' to come again another time and really explore the Moon.

      The Contessina's stock of scent had evidently run low; for it was nearly half an hour before she and the old gentleman emerged again from the observatory.  Time enough for Paul, who had followed them uninvited up the tower, to look at the night sky and talk about little Eddington; to look down at the lights of Florence and reflect aloud that they were beautiful, that earth had its constellations too, to be silent for a little, and then say something about Dante and the Vita Nuova; and again be silent and hold her hand; and at last, rather breathlessly and, for once, inarticulately, to ask her to marry him.

      The intrinsic ludicrousness of what had happened, and the sudden glory of her own elation, had almost caused her to laugh aloud.

      At last!  The magnet had done its work; the philosophic Eye had finally succumbed to life's essential shamelessness.  In the tug-of-war between appearance and reality, reality had won, as it always must, it always must.

      Ludicrous spectacle!  But for her, at least, the joke would have important and serious consequences.  It meant freedom; it meant power over her surroundings; it meant a little cushioned world of privacy outside herself as well as merely within - a house of her own as well as an attitude, a suite at the Ritz as well as a state of mind and a luxuriant fancy.

      'Will you, Veronica?' he had repeated anxiously, as her averted silence persisted through the seconds.  'Oh, my darling, say you will!'

      Confident at last of being able to speak without betraying herself, she had turned back to him.

      Dear Paul ... touched inexpressibly ... taken so utterly by surprise ... would like to wait a day or two before giving her final answer....

      The door of the little observatory had opened and Lord Worplesden could be heard loudly recommending the Contessina to read the more popular writings of Sir James Jeans, F.R.S.  In his case, she reflected, the Eye was astronomical and proconsular; but it was the same old magnet, the identical shamelessness.  And in a few more years there would be the final shamelessness of dying.

      Meanwhile, in the drawing-room, the Queen Mother had responded to Mrs Tendring's accent exactly as her granddaughter had feared and expected.  To his polite enquiries after her health she had responded merely by asking him to spell his name; and when he had done so, she said, 'How very odd!' and repeated the word 'Tendring' two or three times in a tone of extreme distaste as though she were being forced against her will to speak of skunks or excrement.  Then she turned to Daisy and, in a harsh stage-whisper, asked her why on earth she had brought such a dreadfully common little man with her.  Fortunately, Mrs Ockham was able to cover up the old lady's words by the first sentence of her own loud and enthusiastic account of her previous meeting with Sebastian.

      'Oh, he's like Frankie, is he?' said the Queen Mother, after listening for a little while in silence.  'Then he must look very young for his age, very babyish.'

      'He looks sweet!' cried Mrs Ockham, with a sentimental unction which Sebastian found almost as humiliating as her grandmother's offensive.

      'I don't like it when boys look sweet,' Mrs Gamble went on.  'Not with men like Tom Pewsey prowling around.'  She lowered her voice.  'What about that little man of yours, Daisy - is he all right?'

      'Granny!' Mrs Ockham exclaimed in horror.

      She looked round apprehensively, and was relieved to see that Mr Tendring had gone over to the other side of the room and was cataloguing the Capo di Monte figures in the cabinet between the windows.

      'Thank goodness,' she breathed, 'he didn't hear you.'

      'I wouldn't mind if he had,' said the Queen Mother emphatically.  'Penal servitude - that's what those people deserve.'

      'But he isn't one of those people,' Mrs Ockham protested in an agitated and indignant whisper.

      'That's what you think,' the Queen Mother retorted.  'But if you imagine you know anything about the subject, you're very much mistaken.'

      'I don't want to know anything,' said Mrs Ockham with a shudder.  'It's a horrible subject!'

      'Then why bring it up?  Particularly in front of Veronica.  Veronica!' she called.  'Have you been listening?'

      'In snatches,' Mrs Thwale demurely admitted.

      'You see!' said the Queen Mother in a tone of reproachful triumph to Mrs Ockham.  'But luckily she's a married woman.  Which is more than can be said of that boy.  Boy,' she went on, speaking imperiously into the darkness, 'tell me what you think of all this.'

      Sebastian blushed.  'You mean, the ... penal servitude?'

      'Penal servitude?' repeated the Queen Mother irritably. 'I'm asking you what you think of meeting my granddaughter again?'

      'Oh, that!  Well, of course, it's most extraordinary.  I mean, it's a funny coincidence, isn't it?'

      Impulsively, Mrs Ockham put an arm round Sebastian's shoulders and drew him towards her.

      'Not exactly funny,' she said.  'Joyful, if you like - the happiest kind of Godsend.  Yes, a real Godsend,' she repeated, and her eyes filled with the tears that came to her so easily, her voice took on a vibrancy of emotion.'

      'God here, God there,' rasped the Queen Mother.  'You talk too much about God.'

      'But how can one talk and think enough?'

      'It's blasphemous.'

      'But God did send him to me.'

      And to lend emphasis to what she had said, Mrs Ockham tightened her embrace.  Inertly, Sebastian suffered himself to be hugged.  He felt horribly embarrassed.  She was making a fool of him in public - just how much of a fool he divined from the expression on Mrs Thwale’s face.  It was the same expression as he had seen on it that afternoon when she tormented him with her talk of giving Mrs Gamble a demonstration of outrage - the amused, impersonal expression of the spectator who looks on at a delightfully heartless little comedy of manners.

      'And not only blasphemous,' the Queen Mother continued.  'It's bad taste to be always talking about God.  Like wearing all one's pearls all day long, instead of only in the evening when one's dressed for dinner.'

      'Apropos of dressing for dinner,' said Mrs Ockham, trying to shift the conversation on to safer ground, 'Sebastian and I have agreed that we're going to a lot of plays and concerts together when we get back to London.  Haven't we, Sebastian?'

      He nodded his head and smiled uncomfortably.  Then, to his vast relief, Mrs Ockham dropped her hand from his shoulder, and he was able to move away.

      From between the curtains of her spiritual private box, Mrs Thwale observed it all and was delighted with the play.  The Holy Woman was fairly itching with unsatisfied motherhood.  But the boy, not unnaturally, didn't much relish being made the victim of that particular brand of concupiscence.  So poor old Holy-Poly had to offer bribes.  Theatres and concerts to induce him to become her gigolo-baby, to submit to being the instrument of her maternal lust.  But, after all, there were other forms of the essential shamelessness - forms that an adolescent would find more attractive than mother-craving; there were magnets, she flattered herself, considerably more powerful than Daisy's pug-like face, Daisy's chaste but abundant bosom.  It might be amusing perhaps, it might be an interesting scientific experiment.... She smiled to herself.  Yes, doubly amusing just because of what had happened this evening on Lord Worplesden's tower, scientific to the point of outrage and enormity.

      At the mention of concerts, the Queen Mother, who could never bear to feel that she was being left out of anything, had insisted that she should also be of the party whenever they went to one.  But, of course, she drew the line at modern music.  And Bach always made her go to sleep.  And as for string quartets - she couldn't abide the tiresome scraping and squeaking....

      Suddenly Me Tendring reappeared upon the scene.

      'Pardon me,' he said, when the Queen Mother had come to the end of her musical dislikes; and he handed Mrs Ockham a slip of paper.

      'What's this?' she asked.

      'A discrepancy,' Mr Tendring answered, with all the gravity due to a four-syllabled word used by chartered accountants.

      Foxy, who had the rich dog's infallible ear and eye and nose for members of the lower orders, started to growl.

      'There, there,' said the Queen Mother soothingly.  Then, turning to Mrs Ockham, 'What's the man talking about?' she barked.

      'A discrepancy,' Mr Tendring explained, 'between this receipt, delivered to the late owner on the day of his ... ah ... demise, and the number of articles actually contained in the package.  He bought two: but now there's only one.'

      'One what?' asked Mrs Ockham.

      Mr Tendring smiled almost archly.

      'Well, I suppose you'd say it was a work of art,' he said.

      Sebastian suddenly felt rather sick.

      'If you'll step over here,' Mr Tendring went on.

      They all followed him to the table by the window.  Mrs Ockham examined the one remaining Degas and then the slip of paper upon which M. Weyl had acknowledged payment for two.

      'Let me have them,' said the Queen Mother, when the situation had been explained to her.

      In silence she fingered the drawing's cardboard mount and the flimsy receipt, then handed them back to Mrs Ockham.  The old face lit up.

      'The other one must have been stolen,' she said with relish.

      Stolen! Sebastian repeated to himself.  That was it; they'd think he'd stolen it.  And of course, it now occurred to him for the first time, he had no way of proving that Uncle Eustace had given him the drawing.  Even that little joke between them at the séance wasn't really evidence.  'Bucks and pendulums' - it had been obvious to him.  But would it be obvious if he tried to explain it to anyone else?

      Meanwhile Mrs Ockham had protested against her grandmother's uncharitable suggestion.  But the old lady was not to be put off.

      'It's one of the servants, of course,' she insisted almost gleefully.

      And she went on to tell them about that butler of hers who had drunk at least three dozen bottles of her best brandy, about the housemaid who had been caught with Amy's ruby brooch, about the chauffeur who used to cheat on the petrol and repairs, about the under-gardener who ...

      And the fact that he had immediately gone and sold the thing - that would look bad, of course.  If only he'd mentioned the matter the very day they found the body!  Or else at the séance; that would have been a golden opportunity.  Or this morning to Mrs Thwale.  Or even this evening when Mrs Ockham had offered to give him the dinner jacket - even then, at the risk of looking as if he'd been asking for sympathy on false pretences.  If only, if only ... Because now it was too late.  If he told them now it would look as though he were doing it because he'd been caught.  And the story of Uncle Eustace's generosity would sound like something invented on the spur of the moment to cover up his guilt - a particularly stupid and unconvincing lie.  And yet, if he didn't tell them, goodness only knew what mightn't happen.

      'But we have no right even to think that it's been stolen,' said Mrs Ockham, as the Queen Mother's recollections of dishonest menials temporarily ran dry.  'Poor Eustace probably took it out of the package and put it somewhere.'

      'He couldn't have put it somewhere,' the Queen Mother retorted, 'because he didn't go anywhere.  Eustace was in this room with the boy until he went to the w.c. and passed on.  All the time - isn't that so, boy?'

      Sebastian nodded without speaking.

      'Can't you answer?' the ghostly sergeant-major exploded.

      'Oh, I'm sorry.  I forgot.... I mean, yes, he was here.  All the time.'

      'Listen to that, Veronica,' said the Queen Mother.  'He mumbles worse than ever.'

      Mrs Ockham turned to Sebastian.

      'Did you see him doing anything with the drawing that evening?' she asked.

      For a second, Sebastian hesitated; then, in a kind of unreasoning panic, he shook his head.

      'No, Mrs Ockham.'

      Feeling that he was violently blushing, he turned away and, to hide his telltale face, bent down to look more closely at the drawing on the table.

      'I told you it was stolen,' he heard the Queen Mother saying triumphantly.

      'Oh, Mr Tendring, why did you have to find it out?' Mrs Ockham wailed.

      He began to say something dignified about his professional duty, when the Queen Mother interrupted him.

      'Now listen, Daisy,' she said.  'I won't have you behaving like a sentimental imbecile, slobbering over a pack of good-for-nothing servants!  Why, they're probably robbing you right and left at this very moment.

      'No, they aren't,' cried Mrs Ockham.  'I simply refuse to believe it.  And anyhow, why should we bother about this wretched drawing?  It it's as ugly as the other one ...'

      'Why should we bother?' Mr Tendring repeated in the tone of one whose most sacred feelings have been outraged.  'But do you realize what the late owner paid for this object?'  He picked up the receipt and handed it against to Mrs Ockham.  'Seven thousand lire, madam.  Seven thousand lire.'

      Sebastian started and looked up at him; his eyes widened, his mouth fell open.  Seven thousand lire?  And that stinker had offered him a thousand and congratulated him on his business ability for having screwed the price up to two thousand two hundred.  Anger and humiliation brought the blood rushing up into his face.  What a fool he'd been, what an unutterable idiot!

      'You see, Daisy, you see?'  The Queen Mother's expression was gleeful.  'They could sell the thing for the equivalent of a year's wages.'

      There was a little silence; and then, from behind him, Sebastian heard Mrs Thwale's low musical voice.

      'I don't think it was one of the s-servants,' she said, lingering with delicate affectation over the sibilant.  'I think it was somebody els-se.'

      Sebastian's heart started to beat very fast and hard, as though he had been playing football.  Yes, she must have seen him through the door, while he was putting the drawing into his dispatch-case.  And when, an instant later, she spoke his name, he felt absolutely certain of it.

      'Sebastian,' Mrs Thwale repeated softly, when he failed to answer.

      Reluctantly he straightened himself up and looked at her.  Mrs Thwale was smiling again as she might smile if she were watching a comedy.

      'I expect you know as well as I do,' she said.

      He swallowed hard and looked away.

      'Don't you?' Mrs Thwale insisted softly.

      'Well,' he began almost inaudibly, 'I suppose you mean ...'

      'Of course,' she broke in.  'Of course!  That little girl who was out there on the terrace.'  And she pointed at the darkness beyond the window.

      Startled, Sebastian looked up at her again.  The dark eyes were dancing with a kind of exultant light; the smiling lips looked as though they might part at any moment to give passage to a peal of laughter.

      'Little girl?' echoed the Queen Mother.  'What little girl?'

      Mrs Thwale started to explain.  And suddenly, with an overpowering sense of relief, Sebastian realized that he had been reprieved.