She said quite sharply like a little scratching cat,

“Anthony might.”

“Anthony? My good girl!”

Her voice turned obstinate.

“I don’t think he would like a very rich wife. Some people don’t.”

“Some people might think more about the wife than about the money. Personally, of course, I am waiting for a super heiress.”

“And when you’ve found her?”

“I shall forsake a sordid life of crime and return to the Sussex Downs and keep bees like Sherlock Holmes.”

“I should have thought you might have found your heiress by now if you had really looked for her.”

He laughed.

“Perhaps I haven’t really looked!”

“Frank, why haven’t you? Is it because of that Susan What’s-her-name? Someone once told Mummy she was the only woman you had ever really been in love with.”

“And you always believe everything that anyone tells Monica?”

Cicely persisted.

“Was there really a Susan?”

“Quite a number of them. It’s a popular name.”

“Oh, well, if you won’t tell me-”

“So that you may tell Monica, and Monica may tell all her dearest friends? Thank you, my child!”

She made a little cross face.

“Oh, well, you’ll have to marry some day. But I don’t think Georgina would be any good. She’s as fair as you are. You ought to marry a dark girl, or at any rate a brown one.”

“Like you?”

Cicely showed the tip of her tongue again.

“Exactly like me. What a pity I’m not twins!”

Chapter II

FRANK ABBOTT drove down to Field End with Anthony Hallam on the following Saturday evening. They ran into fog and arrived so much later than they meant to that they were shown directly to their rooms and were obliged to hurry over their dressing. They had left the fog behind them, but all that he could see of the house as they drove up to it was the square Georgian look and enough light filtering through the curtains to show that not one of the rooms inside was dark.