"Yes, but my dear old soul, we can't sit and gloom about the place forever," objected her betrothed. "I don't mind telling you that Brother Basil's getting on my nerves already. After all - a poor show, and all that sort of thing, but it's not as though it was his best friend, or what not."

"Darling, it's not that," said Joan patiently. "I keep on trying to explain to you what Basil feels about dead things. He can't bear them. You will insist on thinking he's a callous sort of he-man just because he looks the part, and he isn't. It's one of the things I like about him."

"But dash it all," expostulated Anthony, "he shoots and hunts, doesn't he?"

"Yes, but he doesn't like being in at the death, and I bet you've never seen him pick up the birds that have been shot. Don't say anything about it, because he'd hate anyone to know. He wouldn't even bury Jenny's puppies for me. Wouldn't touch them."

"Well, anyway, I think all this mourning's a bit overdone," said Corkran.

Joan was silent, she looked troubled. Felicity had begun to say: "It isn't particularly enlivening to have one's butler shot…' when she was interrupted by a disturbance in the middle of the road. "Oh, good Lord! Wolf!" she cried.

Wolf, emerging from the butcher's shop, had encountered a bull-terrier. Mutual dislike had straightway sprung up between them, and after the briefest preliminaries battle was joined. As Felicity spoke a girl ran forward and tried to catch the bull-terrier. Mr. Amberley joined the fray and grabbed Wolf by the scruff of his neck. The girl's hands grasped the bull-terrier round the throat. "Hold your dog!" she panted. "I'll have to choke Bill. It's the only way."

Mr. Amberley glanced quickly up at her, but her face was bent over the dogs.