When Tom came in, bearing a huge soup tureen, and looking, it must be confessed, very red and embarrassed, Janet observed composedly that the person on whom they had relied to help them to-night had failed them at the last moment, and they had decided that it would be simpler for them to wait on themselves.

Radmore muttered to his neighbour, Rosamund, “Where’s Betty?”

“In the kitchen.  She’s the only one of us who knows how to cook.  She loves cooking.  She’ll come into the drawing-room later if she’s not too tired.”

Radmore felt indignant.  It was too bad that Betty, whom he vividly remembered as the petted darling of the house, should now have become—­to put it in a poetical way—­the family Cinderella!  But as the dinner went on, and as the soup was succeeded by some excellent fish, as well as by roast chicken, a particularly delicious blackberry fool, and a subtly composed savoury, he began to wonder whether some good professional cook had not been got in after all.  He could hardly believe that Betty had cooked and dished up this really excellent dinner.

All through the meal Timmy flitted in and out, bringing round and removing the plates, but it was Tom who did most of the waiting.

At last Janet, catching Enid Crofton’s eye, got up and delivered as parting injunction, “Please don’t stay too long behind us, gentlemen—­we’re going to have coffee in the drawing-room.”

Jack Tosswill sprang to the door, and tried to catch Mrs. Crofton’s eye as she passed out first, but of course he failed, and as he came back to the table, he observed:  “I do hope Betty won’t be too tired to come into the drawing-room.  Mrs. Crofton was saying the other day that she wished she knew her better.”  He was in a softened mood, the kind of mood which makes a man not only say, but think, pleasant things.

And then Mr. Tosswill made one of his rare practical remarks.  “I have always thought that every woman ought to be taught cooking,” he said musingly.  “We have certainly just had a very good dinner; I must remember to tell Betty how much I enjoyed that savoury.”

“Did Betty cook it all?” asked Radmore.

It was Jack who answered, “Yes, of course she did.  Early in the War there was a great shortage of cooks in some of the country hospitals, and so Betty asked a friend of ours to allow her to spend a few weeks in her kitchen.  So now we have the benefit of all she learnt there.”

Five minutes later the three men stood at the open door of the drawing-room, and at once Radmore saw that Betty was not there.  That was really too bad!  What selfish girls her sisters were!

Acting on an impulse he could not have analysed, he stepped back into the corridor and walked quickly towards the green baize door which led to the kitchen quarters.  Just as he reached it, the door burst open, and Tom, rushing through, almost knocked him over.

“Hullo!  Steady there!  Where are you going?”