“Don’t let’s start abusing each other’s generations, Father. We’ve never done that. You’ve been so extraordinarily understanding in so many ways. It’s Eleanor!” said Henry. “It’s Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor who is to blame for this!”

The door at the far end of the room was opened and against the lamplit hall beyond appeared a woman’s figure.

“Did I hear you call me, Henry?” asked a quiet voice.

ii

Miss Eleanor Prentice came into the room. She reached out a thin hand and switched on the lights.

“It’s past five o’clock,” said Miss Prentice. “Almost time for our little meeting. I asked them all for half-past five.”

She walked with small mimbling steps towards the cherrywood table which, Henry noticed, had been moved from the wall into the centre of the study. Miss Prentice began to place pencils and sheets of paper at intervals round the table. As she did this she produced, from between her thin closed lips, a dreary flat humming which irritated Henry almost beyond endurance. More to stop this noise than because he wanted to know the answer, Henry asked:

“What meeting, Cousin Eleanor?”

“Have you forgotten, dear? The entertainment committee. The rector and Dinah, Dr. Templett, Idris Campanula, and ourselves. We are counting on you. And on Dinah, of course.”

She uttered this last phrase with additional sweetness. Henry thought, “She knows we’ve been talking about Dinah.” As she fiddled with her pieces of paper Henry watched her with that peculiar intensity that people sometimes lavish on a particularly loathed individual.

Eleanor Prentice was a thin, colourless woman of perhaps forty-nine years. She disseminated the odour of sanctity to an extent that Henry found intolerable. Her perpetual half-smile suggested that she was of a gentle and sweet disposition. This faint smile caused many people to overlook the strength of her face, and that was a mistake, for its strength was considerable.