“Do sit down,” said the ginger-haired lady doubtfully, “Mrs. — ah — Buns.”

“Thank you, but excuse me — Bünz. Eu, eu,” said Mrs. Bùnz, thrusting out her lips with tutorial emphasis, “or if eu is too difficult, Bins or Burns will suffice. But nothing edible!” She greeted her own joke with the cordial chuckle of an old acquaintance. “It’s a German name, of course. My dear late husband and I came over before the war. Now I am saturated, I hope I may say, in the very sap of old England. But,” Mrs. Bünz added, suddenly vibrating the tip of her tongue as if she anticipated some delicious tid-bit, “to our muttons. To our muttons, Miss — ah —”

“Mardian,” said Miss Mardian turning a brickish pink.

“Ach, that name!”

“If you wouldn’t mind —”

“But of course. I come immediately to the point. It is this. Miss Mardian, I have driven three hundred miles to see your great-aunt.”

“Oh dear! She’s resting, I’m afraid —”

“You are, of course, familiar with the name of Rekkage.”

“Well, there was old Lord Rekkage who went off his head.”

“It cannot be the same.”

“He’s dead now. Warwickshire family near Bapple.”

“It is the same. As to his sanity I feel you must be misinformed. A great benefactor. He founded the Guild of Ancient Customs.”

“That’s right. And left all his money to some too-extraordinary society.”

“The Hobby-Horses. I see, my dear Miss Mardian, that we have dissimilar interests. Yet,” said Mrs. Bünz lifting her voluminous chins, “I shall plod on. So much at stake. So much.”

“I’m afraid,” said Miss Mardian vaguely, “that I can’t offer you tea. The boiler’s burst.”

“I don’t take it. Pray, Miss Mardian, what are Dame Alice’s interests? Of course, at her wonderfully great age —”

“Aunt Akky? Well, she likes going to sales. She picked up nearly all the furniture in this room at auctions. Lots of family things were lost when Mardian Place was burnt down. So she built this house of bits of the old castle and furnished it from sales. She likes doing that, awfully.”