“It’s no good you making a noise, gentlemen. The Dean ain’t a-coming down tonight.”

This actually silenced him for the moment. She turned to Peter, who said: “Have you any commissions in Town?”

“Why, are you going back?”

“I’m running up tonight and on to York in the morning. I expect to get back on Thursday.”

“York?”

“Yes; I want to see a man there-about a dog, and all that.”

“Oh, I see. Well-if it wouldn’t be out of your way to call at my flat, you might take up a few chapters of manuscript to my secretary. I’d rather trust you than the post. Could you manage it?”

“With very great pleasure,” said Wimsey, formally.

She ran up to her room to get the papers, and from the window observed that the Wimsey family was having the matter out with itself. When she came down with the parcel, she found the nephew waiting at the door of Tudor, rather red in the face.

“Please, I am to apologize.”

“I should think so,” said Harriet, severely. “I can’t be disgraced like this in my own quad. Frankly, I can’t afford it.”

“I’m most frightfully sorry,” said Lord Saint-George. “It was rotten of me. Honestly, I wasn’t thinking of anything except getting Uncle Peter’s goat. And if it’s any satisfaction to you,” he added, ruefully, “I got it.”

“Well, be decent to him; he’s very decent to you.”

“I will be good,” said Peter’s nephew, taking the parcel from her, and they proceeded amicably together till Peter rejoined them at the Lodge.

“Damn that boy!” said Wimsey, when he had sent Saint-George ahead to start up the car.

“Oh, Peter, don’t worry about every little thing so dreadfully. What does it matter? He only wanted to tease you.”

“It’s a pity he can’t find some other way to do it. I seem to be a perfect mill-stone tied round your neck, and the sooner I clear out the better.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” said Harriet irritated. “If you’re going to be morbid about it, it certainly would be better for you if you did clear out. I’ve told you so before.”

Lord Saint-George, finding his elders dilatory, blew a cheerful “hi-tiddleyhi-ti, pom, pom” on the horn.

“Damn and blast!” said Peter. He took gate and path at a bound, pushed his nephew angrily out of the driving-seat, jerked the door of the Daimler to noisily and shot off up the road with a bellowing roar. Harriet, finding herself unexpectedly possessed of a magnificent fit of bad temper, went back, determined to extract the last ounce of enjoyment out of it; an exercise in which she was greatly helped by the discovery that the little episode on the loggia had greatly intrigued the Senior Common Room, and by learning from Miss Allison, after Hall, that Miss Hillyard, when she heard of it, had made some very unpleasant observations, which it was only right that Miss Vane should know about.

Oh, God! thought Harriet, alone in her room, what have I done, more than thousands of other people, except have the rotten luck to be tried for my life and have the whole miserable business dragged out into daylight?… Anybody would think I’d been punished enough… But nobody can forget it for a moment… I can’t forget it… Peter can’t forget it… If Peter wasn’t a fool he’d chuck it… He must see how hopeless it all is… Does he think I like to see him suffering vicarious agonies?… Does he really suppose I could ever marry him for the pleasure of seeing him suffer agonies?…Can’t he see that the only thing for me to do is to keep out of it all?… What the devil possessed me to bring him to Oxford?… Yes-and I thought it would be so nice to retire to Oxford… to have “unpleasant observations” made about me by Miss Hillyard, who’s half potty, if you ask me… Somebody’s potty, anyhow… that seems to be what happens to one if one keeps out of the way of love and marriage and all the rest of the muddle… Well if Peter fancies I’m going to “accept the protection of his name” and be grateful, he’s damn well mistaken… A nice, miserable business that’d be for him… It’s a nice, miserable business for him, too, if he really wants me-if he does-and can’t have what he wants because I had the rotten luck to be tried for a murder I didn’t do… It looks as if he was going to get hell either way… Well, let him get hell, it’s his lookout… It’s a pity he saved me from being hanged-he probably wishes by now he’d left me alone… I suppose any decently grateful person would give him what he wants… But it wouldn’t be much gratitude to make him miserable… We should both be perfectly miserable, because neither of us could ever forget… I very nearly did forget the other day on the river… And I had forgotten this afternoon, only he remembered it first… Damn that impudent Little beast! how horribly cruel the young can be to the middle-aged!… I wasn’t frightfully kind myself… And I did know what I was doing… It’s a good thing Peter’s gone… but I wish he hadn’t gone and left me in this ghastly place where people go off their heads and write horrible letters… “When I am from him I am dead till I be with him.”… No, it won’t do to feel like that… I won’t get mixed up with that kind of thing again… I’ll stay out of it… I’ll stay here… where people go queer in their heads… Oh, God, what have I done, that I should be such a misery to myself and other people? Nothing more than thousands of women…

Round and round, like a squirrel in a cage, till at last Harriet had to say firmly to herself: This won’t do, or I shall go potty myself. I’d better keep my mind on the job. What’s taken Peter to York? Miss de Vine? If I hadn’t lost my temper I might have found out, instead of wasting time in quarrelling. I wonder if he’s made any notes on the dossier.

She took up the loose-leaf book, which was still wrapped in its paper and string and sealed all over with the Wimsey crest. “As my Whimsy takes me”-Peter’s whimsies had taken him into a certain amount of trouble. She broke the seals impatiently; but the result was disappointing. He had marked nothing-presumably he had copied out anything he wanted. She turned the pages, trying to piece some sort of solution together, but too tired to think coherently. And then-yes; here was his writing, sure enough, but not on a page of the dossier. This was the unfinished sonnet-and of all the idiotic things to do, to leave half-finished sonnets mixed up with one’s detective work for other people to see! A schoolgirl trick, enough to make anybody blush. Particularly since, from what she remembered of the sonnet, its sentiments had become remarkably inappropriate to the state of her feelings.

But here it was: and in the interval it had taken to itself a sestet and stood, looking a little unbalanced, with her own sprawling hand above and Peter’s deceptively neat script below, like a large top on a small spindle.

Having achieved this, the poet appeared to have lost countenance; for he had added the comment: