“Oh yes, we did—­didn’t we, Rose?”

“Yes—­I remember,” said Lady Caroline.  “Only it seemed so incredible that one could every want to.  One’s whole idea was to get away from one’s friends.”

“And one’s husbands.”

Again that unseemly plural.  But how altogether unseemly, thought Mrs. Fisher.  Such implications.  Mrs. Arbuthnot clearly thought so too, for she had turned red.

“And family affection,” said Lady Caroline—­or was it the Chianti speaking?  Surely it was the Chianti.

“And the want of family affection,” said Mrs. Wilkins—­what a light she was throwing on her home life and real character.

“That wouldn’t be so bad,” said Lady Caroline.  “I’d stay with that.  It would give one room.”

“Oh no, no—­it’s dreadful,” cried Mrs. Wilkins.  “It’s as if one had no clothes on.”

“But I like that,” said Lady Caroline.

“Really—­” said Mrs. Fisher.

“It’s a divine feeling, getting rid of things,” said Lady Caroline, who was talking altogether to Mrs. Wilkins and paid no attention to the other two.

“Oh, but in a bitter wind to have nothing on and know there never will be anything on and you going to get colder and colder till at last you die of it—­that’s what it was like, living with somebody who didn’t love one.”

These confidences, thought Mrs. Fisher . . . and no excuse whatever for Mrs. Wilkins, who was making them entirely on plain water.  Mrs. Arbuthnot, judging from her face, quite shared Mrs. Fisher’s disapproval; she was fidgeting.

“But didn’t he?” asked Lady Caroline—­every bit as shamelessly unreticent as Mrs. Wilkins.

“Mellersh?  He showed no signs of it.”

“Delicious,” murmured Lady Caroline.

“Really—­” said Mrs. Fisher.

“I didn’t think it was at all delicious.  I was miserably.  And now, since I’ve been here, I simply stare at myself being miserable.  As miserable as that.  And about Mellersh.”

“You mean he wasn’t worth it.”

“Really—­” said Mrs. Fisher.

“No, I don’t.  I mean I’ve suddenly got well.”

Lady Caroline, slowly twisting the stem of her glass in her fingers, scrutinized the lit-up face opposite.

“And now I’m well I find I can’t sit here and gloat all to myself.  I can’t be happy, shutting him out.  I must share.  I understand exactly what the Blessed Damozel felt like.

“What was the Blessed Damozel?” asked Scrap.

“Really—­” said Mrs. Fisher; and with such emphasis this time that Lady Caroline turned to her.

“Ought I to know?” she asked.  “I don’t know any natural history.  It sounds like a bird.”

“It is a poem,” said Mrs. Fisher with extraordinary frost.

“Oh,” said Scrap.

“I’ll lend it to you,” said Mrs. Wilkins, over whose face laughter rippled.

“No,” said Scrap.

“And its author,” said Mrs. Fisher icily, “though not perhaps quite what one would have wished him to be, was frequently at my father’s table.”