Félicité‘s lips trembled. She turned away and began to speak rapidly, in a high voice. “He roared and stormed and wouldn’t listen to anything. It was devastating. You can’t conceive what it was like. He said I was to announce our engagement at once. He said if I didn’t he’d — he said he’d go off and just simply end it all — He’s given me a week. I’ve got till next Tuesday. That’s all. I’ve got to announce it before next Tuesday.”

“And you don’t want to?” Carlisle asked gently. She saw Félicité’s shoulders quiver and went to her. “Is that it, Fée?”

The voice quavered and broke. Félicité drove her hands through her hair. “I don’t know what I want,” she sobbed. “Lisle, I’m in such a muddle. I’m terrified, Lisle. It’s so damned awful, Lisle. I’m terrified.”

Lady Pastern had preserved throughout the war and its exhausted aftermath an unbroken formality. Her rare dinner parties had, for this reason, acquired the air of period pieces. The more so since, by feat of superb domestic strategy, she had contrived to retain at Duke’s Gate a staff of trained servants, though a depleted one. As she climbed into a long dress, six years old, Carlisle reflected that if the food shortage persisted, her aunt would soon qualify for the same class as that legendary Russian nobleman who presided with perfect equanimity at an interminable banquet of dry bread and water.

She had parted with Félicité, who was still shaking and incoherent, on the landing. “You’ll see him at dinner,” Félicité had said. “You’ll see what I mean.” And with a spurt of defiance: “And anyway, I don’t care what anyone thinks. If I’m in a mess, it’s a thrilling mess. And if I want to get out of it, it’s not for other people’s reasons. It’s only because— Oh, God, what’s it matter!”