Where she had her lunch, with whom she had it, and who served it, were matters of great importance to her and she was painfully aware of the subtlest nuances in her employers’ attitude towards herself. About her new job she was neatly optimistic. Lady Carrados had impressed her favourably, had treated her, in her own phrase, like a perfect lady. Miss Harris walked briskly along an upstairs passage and tapped twice, not too loud and not too timidly, on a white door.

“Come in,” cried a far-away voice.

Miss Harris obeyed and found herself in a large white bedroom. The carpet, the walls and the chairs were all white. A cedar-wood fire crackled beneath the white Adam mantelpiece, a white bearskin rug nearly tripped Miss Harris up as she crossed the floor to the large white bed where her employer sat propped up with pillows. The bed was strewn about with sheets of notepaper.

“Oh, good morning, Miss Harris,” said Lady Carrados. “You can’t think how glad I am to see you. Do you mind waiting a moment while I finish this note? Please sit down.”

Miss Harris sat discreetly on a small chair. Lady Carrados gave her a vague, brilliant smile, and turned again to her writing. Miss Harris with a single inoffensive glance had taken in every detail of her employer’s appearance.

Evelyn Carrados was thirty-seven years old, and on her good days looked rather less. She was a dark, tall woman with little colour but a beautiful pallor. Paddy O’Brien had once shown her a copy of the Madonna di San Sisto and had told her that she was looking at herself. This was not quite true. Her face was longer and had more edge and character than Raphael’s complacent virgin, but the large dark eyes were like and the sleek hair parted down the centre. Paddy had taken to calling her “Donna” after that and she still had his letters beginning: “Darling Donna.” Oddly enough, Bridget, his daughter, who had never seen him, called her mother “Donna” too. She had come into the room on the day Miss Harris was interviewed and had sat on the arm of her mother’s chair. A still girl with a lovely voice. Miss Harris looking straight in front of her remembered this interview now while she waited. “He hasn’t appeared yet,” thought Miss Harris, meaning Sir Herbert Carrados, whose photograph faced her in a silver frame on his wife’s dressing-table.