“I have defended it,” Lady Pastern said, “in the teeth of your uncle’s most determined assaults.”

“Ah,” thought Carlisle, “the preliminaries are concluded. Now, we’re off.”

“Your uncle,” Lady Pastern continued, “has, during the last sixteen years, made periodic attempts to introduce prayer-wheels, brass Buddhas, a totem-pole, and the worst excesses of the surrealists. I have withstood them all. On one occasion I reduced to molten silver an image of some Aztec deity. Your uncle purchased it in Mexico City. Apart from its repellent appearance I had every reason to believe it spurious.”

“He doesn’t change,” Carlisle murmured.

“It would be more correct, my dear child, to say that he is constant in inconstancy.” Lady Pastern made a sudden and vigorous gesture with both her hands. “He is ridiculous to contemplate,” she said strongly, “and entirely impossible to live with. A madman, except in a few unimportant technicalities. He is not, alas, certifiable. If he were, I should know what to do.”

“Oh, come!”

“I repeat, Carlisle, I should know what to do. Do not misunderstand me. For myself, I am resigned. I have acquired armour. I can suffer perpetual humiliation. I can shrug my shoulders at unparalleled buffooneries. But when my daughter is involved,” said Lady Pastern with uplifted bust, “complaisance is out of the question. I assert myself. I give battle.”

“What’s Uncle George up to, exactly?”

“He is conniving, where Félicité is concerned, at disaster. I cannot hope that you are unaware of her attachment.”

“Well—”

“Evidently, you are aware of it. A professional bandsman who, as no doubt you heard on your arrival, is here, now, at your uncle’s invitation, in the ballroom. It is almost certain that Félicité is listening to him. An utterly impossible young man of a vulgarity — ” Lady Pastern paused and her lips trembled. “I have seen them together at the theatre,” she said. “He is beyond everything. One cannot begin to describe. I am desperate.”

“I’m so sorry, Aunt Cile,” Carlisle said uneasily.

“I knew I should have your sympathy, dearest child. I hope I shall enlist your help. Félicité admires and loves you. She will naturally make you her confidante.”

“Yes, but, Aunt Cile —”

A clamour of voices broke out in some distant part of the house. “They are going,” said Lady Pastern hurriedly. “It is the end of the répétition. In a moment your uncle and Félicité will appear. Carlisle, may I implore you — ”

“I don’t suppose — ” Carlisle began dubiously, and at that juncture, hearing her uncle’s voice on the landing, rose nervously to her feet. Lady Pastern, with a grimace of profound significance, laid her hand on her niece’s arm. Carlisle felt a hysterical giggle rise in her throat. The door opened and Lord Pastern and Bagott came trippingly into the room.

He was short, not more than five foot seven, but so compactly built that he did not give the impression of low stature. Everything about him was dapper, though not obtrusively so; his clothes, the flower in his coat, his well-brushed hair and moustache. His eyes, light grey with pinkish rims, had a hot impertinent look, his underlip jutted out and there were clearly defined spots of local colour over his cheek-bones. He came briskly into the room, bestowed a restless kiss upon his niece and confronted his wife.

“Who’s dinin’?” he said.

“Ourselves, Félicité, Carlisle, of course, and Edward Manx. And I have asked Miss Henderson to join us to-night.”

“Two more,” said Lord Pastern. “I’ve asked Bellairs and Rivera.”

“That is quite impossible, George,” said Lady Pastern, calmly.

“Why?”

“Apart from other unanswerable considerations, there is not enough food for two extra guests.”

“Tell ’em to open a tin.”

“I cannot receive these persons for dinner.”

Lord Pastern grinned savagely. “All right. Rivera can take Félicité to a restaurant and Bellairs can come here. Same number as before. How are you, Lisle?”

“I’m very well, Uncle George.”

“Félicité will not dine out with this individual, George. I shall not permit it.”

“You can’t stop ’em.”

“Félicité will respect my wishes.”

“Don’t be an ass,” said Lord Pastern. “You’re thirty years behind the times, m’dear. Give a gel her head and she’ll find her feet.” He paused, evidently delighted with this aphorism. “Way you’re goin’, you’ll have an elopement on your hands. Comes to that, I don’t see the objection.”

“Are you demented, George?”

“Half the women in London’d give anything to be in Fee’s boots.”

“A Mexican bandsman.”

“Fine, well-set-up young feller. Inoculate your old stock. That’s Shakespeare, ain’t it Lisle? I understand he comes of a perfectly good Spanish family. Hidalgo, or whatever it is,” he added vaguely. “A feller of good family happens to be an artist and. you go and condemn him. Sort of thing that makes you sick.” He turned to his niece: “I’ve been thinkin’ seriously of givin’ up the title, Lisle.”

“George!”

“About dinner, can you find something for them to eat or can’t you? Speak up.”

Lady Pastern’s shoulders rose with a shudder. She glanced at Carlisle, who thought she detected a glint of cunning in her aunt’s eye. “Very well, George,” Lady Pastern said. “I shall speak to the servants. I shall speak to Dupont. Very well.”

Lord Pastern darted an extremely suspicious glance at his wife and sat down. “Nice to see you, Lisle,” he said. “What have you been doin’ with yourself?”

“I’ve been in Greece, Famine Relief.”

“If people understood dietetics there wouldn’t be all this starvation,” said Lord Pastern darkly. “Are you keen on music?”

Carlisle returned a guarded answer. Her aunt, she realized, was attempting to convey by means of a fixed stare and raised eyebrows some message of significance.

“I’ve taken it up, seriously,” Lord Pastern continued. “Swing. Boogie-woogie. Jive. Find it keeps me up to the mark.” He thumped with his heel on the carpet, beat his hands together and in a strange nasal voice intoned: “ ‘Shoo-shoo-shoo, baby, Bye-bye, bye Baby.’ ”

The door opened and Félicité de Suze came in. She was a striking young woman with large black eyes, a wide mouth and an air of being equal to anything. She cried, “Darling — you’re heaven its very self,” and kissed Carlisle with enthusiasm. Lord Pastern was still clapping and chanting. His stepdaughter took up the burden of his song, raised a finger and jerked rhythmically before him. They grinned at each other. “You’re coming along very prettily indeed, George,” she said.

Carlisle wondered what her impression would have been if she were a complete stranger. Would she, like Lady Pastern, have decided that her uncle was eccentric to the point of derangement? “No,” she thought, “probably not. There’s really a kind of terrifying sanity about him. He’s overloaded with energy, he says exactly what he thinks and he does exactly what he wants to do. But he’s an oversimplification of type, and he’s got no perspective. He’s never mildly interested in anything. But which of us,” Carlisle reflected, “has not, at some time, longed to play the big drum?”

Félicité, with an abandon that Carlisle found unconvincing, flung herself into the sofa beside her mother. “Angel,” she said richly, “don’t be so grande dame! George and I are having fun!”

Lady Pastern disengaged herself and rose. “I must see Dupont.”

“Ring for Spence,” said her husband. “Why d’you want to go burrowin’ about in the servants’ quarters?”

Lady Pastern pointed out, with great coldness, that in the present food shortage one did not, if one wished to retain the services of one’s cook, send a message at seven in the evening to the effect that there would be two extra for dinner. In any case, she added, however great her tact, Dupont would almost certainly give notice.