“I’m so sorry, Godfrey, but I’m in the devil of a hurry, for I’ve got to clear the dining-room.  Once that’s done, my work’s over, and I can go into the drawing-room.”  Tom was grinning good-humouredly.  “I say, Mrs. Crofton does look a peach to-night, doesn’t she?”

Even as he spoke, he was hooking the door back.  Then he hurried into the dining-room without waiting for an answer.

Godfrey went on with rather hesitating steps down the broad, stone-flagged passage.  According to tradition, this part of Old Place was mediaeval, and it was certainly quite different from the rest of the house.  He felt a little awkward for he knew he had no business there, and when he got to the big, vaulted kitchen, he stopped and looked round him dubiously.  The fire in the old-fashioned, wasteful range had been allowed to die down, and on the round wooden table in the middle of the room were heaped up the dinner plates and dishes.

Suddenly he noticed that the door which led into the scullery was ajar, and he heard Betty’s clear, even voice saying:  “When you’ve tidied yourself up a bit, run down and let me see how you look.  I’m afraid they’re not likely to play any games this evening.  It’s a real, proper dinner-party, you know, Timmy.”

Then he heard his godson’s eager voice.  “Oh, Betty, do come too!  Mrs. Jones can do the washing-up to-morrow morning.  If you want to dress I’ll hook you up.”

“I’m too tired to go up and dress,” and Betty’s voice did sound very weary.  There was a despondent note in it, too, which surprised the man standing in the kitchen.  Excepting during the few moments, to him intensely moving and solemn moments, when they had spoken of George within a day or two of his return to Beechfield, he had always seen Betty extraordinarily cheerful.

“You can go just as you are,” he heard Timmy say eagerly.  “You could pretend you’d just been to a fancy ball as a cook!” He added, patronizingly, “If you put on a clean apron, you’ll look quite nice.”

Radmore did not catch the answer, but he gathered that it was again in the negative, and a moment later Timmy’s little feet scampered up the uncarpeted flight of stairs which led into the upper part of the house.

Walking forward, he quietly pushed open the scullery door, and for some seconds he stood unseen, taking in the far from unattractive scene before him.

The scullery of Old Place was a glorified kind of scullery, for, just before the War, Janet had spent a little of her own money on “doing it up.”  Since then she had often congratulated herself on the fact that in the days when the process was comparatively cheap, she had had the scullery walls lined five feet up with black and white tiles matching the linoleum which covered the stone floor.

Against this background Betty Tosswill was now standing, a trim, neat figure, in her pink cotton gown and big white apron.  She was engaged in washing, drying, and polishing the fine old table glass which had been used that evening.