But Auntie Edie played in little nervous runs and slides and rushes; she flung herself, with screams of excitement, against the ball, her partner and the net; and she brandished her racket in a dangerous manner.  The oftener she missed the funnier it was to Auntie Edie.  She had been pretty when she was young, and seventeen years ago her cries and tumbles and collisions had been judged amusing; and Auntie Edie thought they were amusing still.  Anthony had never had the heart to undeceive her.  So that when Anthony was there Auntie Edie still went about setting a standard of gaiety for other people to live up to; and still she was astonished that they never did, that other people had no sense of humour.

Therefore Frances was glad when Anthony told her that he had asked Mr. Parsons, the children’s tutor, and young Norris and young Vereker from the office to come round for tennis at six, and that dinner must be put off till half-past eight.

All was well.  The evening would be sacred to Anthony and the young men.  The illusion of worry passed, and Frances’s real world of happiness stood firm.

And as Frances’s mind, being a thoroughly healthy mind, refused to entertain any dreary possibility for long together, so it was simply unable to foresee downright calamity, even when it had been pointed out to her.  For instance, that Nicky should really have chosen the day of the party for an earache, the worst earache he had ever had.

He appeared at tea-time, carried in Mary-Nanna’s arms, and with his head tied up in one of Mr. Jervis’s cricket scarves.  As he approached his family he tried hard not to look pathetic.

And at the sight of her little son her whole brilliant world of happiness was shattered around Frances.

“Nicky darling,” she said, “why didn’t you tell me it was really aching?”

“I didn’t know,” said Nicky.

He never did know the precise degree of pain that distinguished the beginning of a genuine earache from that of a sham one, and he felt that to palm off a sham earache on his mother for a real one, was somehow a sneaky thing to do.  And while his ear went on stabbing him, Nicky did his best to explain.

“You see, I never know whether it’s aching or whether it’s only going to ache.  It began a little, teeny bit when the Funny Man made me laugh.  And I didn’t see the Magic Lantern, and I didn’t have any of Rosalind’s cake.  It came on when I was biting the sugar off.  And it was aching in both ears at once.  It was,” said Nicky, “a jolly sell for me.”

At that moment Nicky’s earache jabbed upwards at his eyelids and cut them, and shook tears out of them.  But Nicky’s mouth refused to take any part in the performance, though he let his father carry him upstairs.  And, as he lay on the big bed in his mother’s room, he said he thought he could bear it if he had Jane-Pussy to lie beside him, and his steam-engine.