It was at this point that Mrs. Fisher asked for references.  She had no wish to find herself shut up for four weeks with somebody who saw things.  It is true that there were three sitting-rooms, besides the garden and the battlements at San Salvatore, so that there would be opportunities of withdrawal from Mrs. Wilkins; but it would be disagreeable to Mrs. Fisher, for instance, if Mrs. Wilkins were suddenly to assert that she saw Mr. Fisher.  Mr. Fisher was dead; let him remain so.  She had no wish to be told he was walking about the garden.  The only reference she really wanted, for she was much too old and firmly seated in her place in the world for questionable associates to matter to her, was one with regard to Mrs. Wilkins’s health.  Was her health quite normal?  Was she an ordinary, everyday, sensible woman?  Mrs. Fisher felt that if she were given even one address she would be able to find out what she needed.  So she asked for references, and her visitors appeared to be so much taken aback—­Mrs. Wilkins, indeed, was instantly sobered—­that she added, “It is usual.”

Mrs. Wilkins found her speech first.  “But,” she said “aren’t we the ones who ought to ask for some from you?”

And this seemed to Mrs. Arbuthnot too the right attitude.  Surely it was they who were taking Mrs. Fisher into their party, and not Mrs. Fisher who was taking them into it?

For answer Mrs. Fisher, leaning on her stick, went to the writing-table and in a firm hand wrote down three names and offered them to Mrs. Wilkins, and the names were so respectable, more, they were so momentous, they were so nearly august, that just to read them was enough.  The President of the Royal Academy, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Governor of the Bank of England—­who would dare disturb such personages in their meditations with inquires as to whether a female friend of theirs was all she should be?

“They have know me since I was little,” said Mrs. Fisher—­ everybody seemed to have known Mrs. Fisher since or when she was little.

“I don’t think references are nice things at all between—­between ordinary decent women,” burst out Mrs. Wilkins, made courageous by being, as she felt, at bay; for she very well knew that the only reference she could give without getting into trouble was Shoolbred, and she had little confidence in that, as it would be entirely based on Mellersh’s fish.  “We’re not business people.  We needn’t distrust each other—­”

And Mrs. Arbuthnot said, with a dignity that yet was sweet, “I’m afraid references do bring an atmosphere into our holiday plan that isn’t quite what we want, and I don’t think we’ll take yours up or give you any ourselves.  So that I suppose you won’t wish to join us.”

And she held out her hand in good-bye.

Then Mrs. Fisher, her gaze diverted to Mrs. Arbuthnot, who inspired trust and liking even in Tube officials, felt that she would be idiotic to lose the opportunity of being in Italy in the particular conditions offered, and that she and this calm-browed woman between them would certainly be able to curb the other one when she had her attacks.  So she said, taking Mrs. Arbuthnot’s offered hand, “Very well.  I waive references.”