“One mustn’t be insular.”

“No doubt, but wait till you see him. He goes in for jealousy in a big way and he says he’s the scion of a noble Spanish-American family. I don’t believe a word of it and I think Félicite has her doubts.”

“Didn’t you say in your letter that he played the piano-accordion?”

“At the Metronome, in Breezy Bellairs’s Band. He walks out in a spotlight, and undulates. Cousin George is going to pay Breezy some fabulous sum to let him, Cousin George, play the tympani. That’s how Félicité met Carlos.”

“Is she really in love with him?”

“Madly, she says, but she’s beginning to take a poor view of his jealousy. He can’t go dancing with her himself, because of his work. If she goes to the Metronome with anyone else he looks daggers over his piano-accordion and comes across and sneers at them during the solo number. If she goes to other places he finds out from other bandsmen. They appear to be a very close corporation. Of course, being Cousin George’s stepdaughter, she’s used to scenes, but she’s getting a bit rattled nevertheless. It seems that Cousin Cécile, after her interview with my mama, asked Félicité if she thought she could love me. Fée telephoned at once to know if I was up to any nonsense and asked me to lunch with her. So we did and some fool put it in the paper. Carlos read it and went into his act with unparalleled vigour. He talked about knives and what his family do with their women when they are flighty.”

“Fée is a donkey,” said Carlisle after a pause.

“You, my dearest Lisle, are telling me.”

Three, Duke’s Gate, Eaton Place, was a pleasant Georgian house of elegant though discreet proportions. Its front had an air of reticence which was modified by a fanlight, a couple of depressed arches and beautifully designed doors. One might have hazarded a guess that this was the town house of some tranquil wealthy family who in pre-war days had occupied it at appropriate times and punctually left it in the charge of caretakers during the late summer and the shooting seasons. A house for orderly, leisured and unremarkable people, one might have ventured.