"No more than a sea mist, I believe," said Mrs. Mansell.

"You may believe what you choose, Agatha," said Emily, "but I call it a nasty fog."

"Yes, I think it's a kind of a fog," said Betty.

Emily looked at her with renewed dislike. Betty plumped herself down upon the rejected footstool and said: "I simply must tell you what Peter said to me when I told him I was going to Uncle Silas' birthday-party! You know the children always call him Uncle. They absolutely worship him. But of course he's simply marvellous with children, isn't he? I mean, he has a kind of way with them. I suppose it's a sort of magnetism. I always notice how they go to him. I mean, even a shy mite like my Jennifer. It's as though she just can't help herself."

This portrait of her son drawn in the guise of some kind of boa constrictor did not appear to afford Emily any marked degree of gratification. She said dampingly: "And what did Peter say?"

"Oh God!" muttered Rosemary and, jerking herself up out of a deep chair, walked across the room towards Miss Allison and suggested to her that they should go into the conservatory.

Miss Allison realised with a slight sinking of the heart that she was to be made the recipient of confidences.

Mrs. Clement Kane had some few months before suddenly taken what appeared to be a strong liking to her and had signified it by recounting to her with remarkable frankness her various emotional crises.

"What a Godforsaken party!" Rosemary ejaculated as soon as she was out of Emily's ear-shot. "I can't think how you manage to put up with living here day in day out."

Miss Allison considered this. "It isn't as bad as you might imagine," she said. "In fact, it's really rather a pleasant life, taken all round."