“Yes, dear, but we won't talk of it now,” Mrs Matthews said repressively. “You are upset, and you let your tongue run away with you. You must try and realise what it all means to me. I sometimes think poor Gregory was fonder of me than of his own sisters. I do try always to see only the good in everybody, and Gregory responded to me in a way that makes me very happy to look back upon.”

“Oh Gawd!” said Guy rudely.

Mrs Matthews compressed her lips for a moment, but replied almost at once in an extremely gentle voice: “Go and dress, Guy dear. A dark suit, of course, and not that orange pull-over. You too, Stella.”

“Actually, I hadn't thought of the orange pull-over,” said Guy loftily. “But I utterly agree with Nigel about mourning. It's a survival of barbarism, and, as he says—”

“Darling, I know you don't mean to hurt me,” said Mrs Matthews sadly, “but when you treat sacred things in that spirit of—”

“You've simply got to realise that I'm a Pure Agnostic,” replied Guy. “When you talk about things like death being sacred it means absolutely nothing to me.”

“Oh, shut up!” interrupted Stella, giving him a push towards the door. “Nobody wants to listen to your views on religion.”

“They're not particularly my views,” said Guy, “but the views of practically all thinking people today.”

“Oh yeah?” said Stella inelegantly, and walked off to her own room.

Mary's surmise that Dr Fielding had been called out before breakfast was proved to be correct. He had not returned to his house when Beecher rang up, and it was not until both Stella and Guy had bathed and dressed that he arrived at the Poplars. By that time Miss Matthews, recovering from her fit of crying, had also dressed, and had not only telephoned to her elder sister, Gertrude Lupton, but had found time to give a great many orders to Mrs Beecher for the subsequent using-up of the fish and the eggs already cooked for a breakfast she felt sure no one could think of eating. These orders were immediately cancelled by Stella and Guy, who were feeling hungry, and an altercation was in full force when Dr Fielding walked into the house.