“Jonathan shouldn’t have let him go, Hersey. It was very naughty of him. I’m extremely displeased with William for letting Nicholas go. He should never have allowed it.”

“William did his best to dissuade him,” said Mandrake drily.

“He should have come and told me, Mr. Mandrake. He should have used his authority. He is the elder of my sons.” She turned to Hersey. “It’s always been the same. I’ve always said that Nicholas should have been the elder.”

“I don’t agree,” said Chloris quickly.

“No,” Mrs. Compline said. “I did not suppose you would.” And Mandrake, who had thought that Mrs. Compline’s face could express nothing but its own distortion, felt a thrill of alarm when he saw her look at Chloris.

“I speak without prejudice,” said Chloris, and two spots of colour started up in her cheeks. “William and I have broken off our engagement.”

For a moment there was silence and Mandrake saw that Mrs. Compline had forgotten his existence. She continued to stare at Chloris and a shadow of a smile, painful and acrid, tugged at her distorted mouth. “I am afraid you are too late,” she said.

“I don’t understand.”

“My son Nicholas—”

“This has nothing whatever to do with Nicholas.”

“Hersey,” Mrs. Compline said, “I am terribly worried about Nicholas. Surely Jonathan will bring him back. How long have they been gone?”

“It has nothing whatever to do with Nicholas,” Chloris said loudly.

Mrs. Compline stood up. “Hersey, I simply cannot sit here any longer. I’m going to see if they’re coming.”

“You can’t, Sandra. It’s snowing harder than ever. There’s no need to worry, they’re all together.”

“I’m going out on the drive. I haven’t stirred from the house all day. I’m stifled.”

Hersey threw up her hands and said: “All right. I’ll come with you. I’ll get our coats. Wait for me, darling.”

“I’ll wait in the hall. Thank you, Hersey.”

When they had gone, Mandrake said to Chloris: “For God’s sake, let’s go next door and listen to the news. After this party, the war will come as a mild and pleasurable change.”

They moved into the smoking-room. Mrs. Compline crossed the hall and entered the drawing-room, where she stood peering through the windows for her son, Nicholas. Hersey Amblington went upstairs. First she got her own raincoat and then she went to Mrs. Compline’s room to fetch hers. She opened the wardrobe doors and stretched out her hand to a heavy tweed coat. For a moment she stood stock-still, her fingers touching the shoulders of the coat.

It was soaking wet.

And through her head ran the echo of Sandra Compline’s voice: “I haven’t stirred from the house all day.”

In the days that followed that week-end Mandrake was to trace interminably the sequence of events that in retrospect seemed to point so unmistakably towards the terrible conclusion. He was to decide that not the least extraordinary of these events had been his own attitude towards Chloris Wynne. Chloris was not Mandrake’s type. If, in the midst of threats, mysteries, and mounting terrors, he had to embark upon some form of dalliance, it should surely have been with Madame Lisse. Madame was the sort of woman to whom Aubrey Mandrake almost automatically paid attention. She was dark, sophisticated, and — his own expression— immeasurably soignée. She was exactly Aubrey Mandrake’s cup of tea. Chloris was not. Aubrey Mandrake was invariably bored by pert blonds. But — and here lay the reason for his curious behaviour — Stanley Footling adored them. At the sight of Chloris’ shining honey-coloured loops of hair and impertinent blue eyes, the old Footling was roused in Mandrake. Bloomsbury died in him and Dulwich stirred ingenuously. He was only too well aware that in himself was being enacted a threadbare theme, a kind of burlesque, hopelessly out of date, on Jekyll and Hyde. It had happened before but never with such violence, and he told himself that there must be something extra special in Chloris so to rouse the offending Footling that Mandrake scarcely resented the experience.

He followed her into the smoking-room and tuned in the wireless to the war news which, in those now almost forgotten days, largely consisted of a series of French assurances that there was nothing to report. Chloris and Mandrake listened for a little while and then he switched off the radio, leant forward, and kissed her.

“Ah!” said Chloris. “The indoor sport idea, I see.”

“Are you in love with Nicholas Compline?”

“I might say: ‘What the hell’s that got to do with you?’ ”

“Abstract curiosity.”

“With rather un-abstract accompaniments.”.

“When I first saw you I thought you were a little nit-wit.”

Chloris knelt on the hearthrug and poked the fire. “So I am,” she said, “when it comes to your sort of language. I’m quite smartish but I’m not at all clever. I put up a bluff but you’d despise me no end if you knew me better.”

She smiled at him. He felt his mouth go dry and with a sensation of blank panic he heard his own voice, distorted by embarrassment, utter the terrible phrase.

“My real name,” said Mandrake, “is Stanley Footling.”

“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry,” said Chloris. He knew that for a moment, when she recovered from her astonishment, she had nearly laughed.

“STAN-LEY FOOT-LING,” he repeated, separating the destestable syllables as if each was an offence against decency.

“Sickening for you. But after all you’ve changed it, haven’t you?”

“I’ve never told anyone else. In a squalid sort of way it’s a compliment.”

“Thank you. But lots of people must know, all the same.”

“No. All my friendships occurred after I changed it. I got a hideous fright last night at dinner.”

Chloris looked up quickly. “Why, I remember! I noticed. You went all sort of haywire for a moment. It was something Nicholas said, something about—”

“My having given up footling.”

“Oh Lord!” said Chloris.

“Go on — laugh. It’s screamingly funny, isn’t it?”

“Well, it is rather funny,” Chloris agreed. “But it’s easily seen that you don’t get much of a laugh out of it. I can’t quite understand why. There are plenty of names just as funny as Footling.”

“I’ll tell you why. I can’t brazen it out because it’s got no background. If we were the Footlings of Fifeshire, or even the Footlings of Furniture Polish, I might stomach it. I’m a miserable snob. Even as I speak to you I’m horrified to hear how I give myself away by the very content of what I’m saying. I’m committing the only really unforgivable offence. I’m being embarrassing.”

“It seems to me you’ve merely gone Edwardian. You’re all out of focus. You say you’re a snob. All right. So are we all in our degree, they say.”

“But don’t you see it’s the degree I’m so ashamed of. Intellectual snob I may be; I don’t care if I am. But to develop a really bad social inferiority complex — it’s so degrading.”

“It seems a bit silly, certainly. And anyway I don’t see, accepting your snobbery, what you’ve got to worry about. If it’s smartness you’re after, isn’t it smart to be obscure nowadays? Look at the prizefighters. Everybody’s bosoms with them.”

“That’s from your point of view. De haut en bas. I want to be the haut, not the bas,” Mandrake mumbled.

“Well, intellectually you are.” Chloris shifted her position and faced him squarely, looking up, her pale hair taking a richness from the fire. “I say,” she said, “Mr. Royal knows all about it, doesn’t he? About your name?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, I thought last night…I mean after Nicholas dropped that brick, I sort of felt there was something funny and I noticed that he and Lady Hersey and Mr. Royal looked at each other.”

“By God, he put them up to it! I wondered at the time. By God, if he did that I’ll pay him for it!”

“For the love of Heaven, why did I go and say that? I thought you and I were going to remain moderately normal. Nobody else is. Do snap out of being all Freudian over Footling. Who cares if you’re called Footling? And anyway I must say I think ‘Aubrey Mandrake’ is a bit thick. Let’s talk about something else.”