‘How can you speak like that?’

He caught her roughly by the shoulder and twisted her round to face the mirror with the painted roses. ‘Look at yourself in the glass, you old fool! Talk about a man marrying his grandmother.’

She shrank back and he pushed her from him. ‘Coming the schoolmarm over me, with yer “Mind yer manners. Frank,” and “Mind yer aitches,” and bum-sucking round to his lordship-“Frank’s so clever”-t’sha! making me look a blasted fool.’

‘I only wanted to help you get on.’

‘Yes-showing me off, like as if I was your belongings. You’d like to take me up to bed like the silver tea-pot-and a silver tea-pot ’ud be about as much use to you, I reckon.’

Miss Twitterton put her hands over her ears. ‘I won’t listen to you-you’re mad-you’re-’

‘Thought you’d bought me with yer uncle’s money, didn’t you? Well- where is it?’

‘How can you be so cruel?-after all I’ve done for you?’

‘You’ve done for me, all right. Made me a laughingstock and got me into a blasted mess. I suppose you’ve been blabbing about all over the place as we was only waitin’ for vicar to put up the banns-’

‘I’ve never said a word-truly, truly I never have.’

‘Oh, ain’t you? Well, you should a-heard old Ruddle talk.’

‘And if I had,’ cried Miss Twitterton, with a last desperate burst of spirit, ‘why shouldn’t I? You’ve told me over and over again you were fond of me-you said you were-you said you were.’

‘Oh, can that row!’

‘But you did say so. Oh, you can’t, you can’t be so cruel! You don’t know-you don’t know-Frank, please! Dear Frank-I know it’s been a dreadful disappointment-but you can’t mean this-you can’t! I-I-I-oh, do be kind to me, Frank-I love you so.’

In frantic appeal, she flung herself into his arms; and the contact with her damp cheeks and stringy body drove him to an ugly fury. ‘Damn you, get off! Take your blasted claws out of my neck. Shut up! I’m sick and tired of the sight of you.’

He wrenched her loose and flung her heavily upon the settle, bruising her, and knocking her hat grotesquely over one ear. As he looked at her with a sort of delight in her helpless absurdity and her snuffling humiliation, the deep roar of the Daimler’s exhaust zoomed up to the gate and stopped. The latch clicked and steps came along the path. Miss Twitterton sobbed and gulped, hunting vaguely for her handkerchief.

‘Hell’s bells!’ said Crutchley, ‘they’re comin’ in.’

Above the creak of the gravel came the sound of two voices singing together softly:

‘Et ma joli’ colombe

Qui chante your et nuit,

Et ma joli’ colombe

Qui chante jour et nuit,

Qui chante pour les filles

Qui n’ont pas de mari

Aupres de ma blonde

Qu’il fait ban, fait bon, fait bon.

Aupres de ma blonde

Qu’il fait bon dormir.’

‘Get up, you fool!’ said Crutchley, hunting in a hurry for his cap.

‘Qui chante pour les filles

Qui n’ont pas de mari.

Qui chante pour les filles

Qui n’ont pas de mari.’

He found the cap on the window-sill and pulled it on with a jerk. ‘You’d better clear out, sharp. I’m off.’

The woman’s voice rang out, alone and exultant:

‘Pour moi ne chant guere

Car j’en ai un joli.’

The tune, if not the words, stabbed Miss Twitterton into a consciousness of that insolent triumph, and she stirred wretchedly on the hard settle as the duet was joined again:

‘Aupres de ma blonde

Qu’il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon.

Aupres de ma blonde

Qu’il fait bon dormir.’

She lifted a blotched and woebegone face; but Crutchley was gone-and the words of the song came back to her. Her mother, the schoolmistress, had had it in that little book of French songs-though, of course, it was not a thing one could teach the school-children. There were voices in the passage outside.

‘Oh, Crutchley!’-casual and commanding. ‘You can put the car away.’

And Crutchley’s, colourless and respectful, as though it did not know how to use cruel words: ‘Very good, my lord.’

Which way out? Miss Twitterton dabbed the tears from her face. Not into that passage, among them all-with Frank there-and Bunter perhaps coming out of the kitchen-and what would Lord Peter think?

Anything further tonight, my lord?’

‘No, thanks. That’s all. Good night.’

The door-know moved under his hand. Then her ladyship’s voice-warm and friendly”

‘Good night, Crutchley.”

“Good night, my lord. Good night, my lady.’

Seized with panic, Miss Twitterton fled blindly up the bedroom stairs as the door opened.

Chapter XVI. Crown Matrimonial

‘Well, well, well!’ said Peter. ‘Here we are again.’ He lifted his wife’s cloak from her shoulders and gently saluted the nape of her neck.

‘In the proud consciousness of duty done.’

His eyes followed her as she crossed the room. ‘Wonderfully inspiring thing, doing one’s duty. Gives one a sort of exalted sensation. I feel quite lightheaded.’

She dropped on to the couch, laying lazy arms along its back, ‘I’m feeling slightly intoxicated, too. It couldn’t possibly be the vicar’s sherry?’

‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘not possibly. Though I fancy I have drunk worse. Not much, and not more than once. No-it’s just the stimulating effects of well-doing-or perhaps it’s the country air-or something.’

‘Rather giddy-making, but nice.’

‘Oh, definitely.’ He unwound the scarf from his neck, hung it with the cloak over the settle and drifted irresolutely to a position behind the couch. ‘I mean to say-yes, definitely. Like champagne. Almost like being in love. But I don’t think it could be that, do you?’

She tilted her face to smile at him, so that he saw it oddly and intriguingly inverted. ‘Oh, surely not.’ She caught his roving hands, held them, dumbly protesting, away from her breast, brought them up under her chin and imprisoned them there.

‘I thought not. Because, after all, we’re married. Or aren’t we? One can’t be married and in love. Not with the same person, I mean. It isn’t done.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Pity. Because I’m feeling rather youthful and foolish tonight. Tender and twining, like a very young pea. Positively romantic.’

‘That. my lord, is disgraceful in a gentleman of your condition.’

‘My mental condition is simply appalling. I want the violins to strike up in the orchestra and discourse soft music while the limelight merchant turns up the moon…’

‘And the crooners are crooning in tune!’

‘Damn it, why not? I will have my soft music! Unhand me, girl! Let’s see what the B.B.C. can do for us.’

She released him; and her eyes, in their turn, followed him to the radio cabinet. ‘Stand there a moment, Peter. No-don’t turn round.’

‘Why?’ he said, standing obediently. ‘Has my unfortunate face begun to get on your nerves?’

‘No-I was just admiring your spine, that’s all. It has a kind of sort of springy line about it that pleases me. Completely enslaving.’

‘Really? I can’t see it. But I must tell my tailor. He always gives me to understand that he invented my back for me.’

‘Does he also imagine he invented your ears and the back of your skull and the bridge of your nose?’

‘No flattery can be too gross for my miserable sex. I am purring like a coffee-mill. But you might have picked a more responsive set of features. It’s difficult to express devotion with the back of one’s head.’