‘Are they engaged?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s given out?’

‘Yes.’

‘Rather fast work, wasn’t it? But they couldn’t afford to let the grass grow under their feet. I might have come home. I have come home. They’ve not been quite clever enough. Anything fixed about the wedding?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. She said,

‘Next week.’

There was no change in his face.

‘I’ve got to see her.’

‘Lady Dryden won’t let you in.’

He laughed.

‘Let her try and keep me out!’

Her colour rose. She came a step nearer.

‘Bill, that’s no good. If you crash your way in there’ll be a scene.’

‘Do you think I care?’

‘No, but Lila will. If there’s a scene she’ll be frightened, and if she’s frightened she’ll go to bits.’

He said with a sort of deadly calm,

‘I’m going to see her.’

‘It’s no good crashing in.’

He walked across to the window and came back again.

‘No-you’re right. I’ll see her here. Ring up and tell her to come round. Don’t say anything about me. Just get her to come.’

‘She’ll know you’re here.’

‘How?’

‘I told her. I tried to get her to come and meet the train.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She said it was too late.’

Lila’s voice came to her with its plaintive note-‘All the invitations… three hundred presents…’ You couldn’t say that to Bill.

He said sharply,

‘It wouldn’t be too late if she was walking up the aisle! If I don’t see her anywhere else I’ll see her there! You’ll ring her up, and you’ll tell her I’m here. If she wants a scene I’ll come round and make one. If she doesn’t want a scene she’ll come here. Tell her that!’

The telephone stood on one of Cousin Rhoda’s gimcrack tables, its utilitarian outline disguised by a simpering doll with spreading green and lavender skirts which were rather the worse for the London grime. As Ray dialled she had the feeling that the numbers which she was releasing one by one were like birds flying-the like birds which had been released from the ark, floating in turmoil and tempest. The fantastic image passed through her mind and was gone. It left her with a sense of inevitability. Bill had told her to ring up, and she had rung, and now everything that was going to happen would happen.