He consented, and after dinner they sought the hotel where their acquaintance was staying.  Widdowson was in extreme discomfort, partly due to the fact that he had no dress clothes to put on; for far from anticipating or desiring any such intercourse in Guernsey, he had never thought of packing an evening suit.  Had he known Mrs. Cosgrave this uneasiness would have been spared him.  That lady was in revolt against far graver institutions than the swallow-tail; she cared not a button in what garb her visitors came to her.  On their arrival, they found, to Widdowson’s horror, a room full of women.  With the hostess was that younger lady they had seen on the quay, Mrs. Cosgrove’s unmarried sister; Miss Knott’s health had demanded this retreat from the London winter.  The guests were four—­a Mrs. Bevis and her three daughters—­all invalidish persons, the mother somewhat lackadaisical, the girls with a look of unwilling spinsterhood.

Monica, noteworthy among the gathering for her sweet, bright prettiness, and the finish of her dress, soon made herself at home; she chatted gaily with the girls—­wondering indeed at her own air of maturity, which came to her for the first time.  Mrs. Cosgrove, an easy woman of the world when circumstances required it, did her best to get something out of Widdowson who presently thawed a little.

Then Miss Knott sat down to the piano, and played more than tolerably well; and the youngest Miss Bevis sang a song of Schubert, with passable voice but in very distressing German—­the sole person distressed by it being the hostess.

Meanwhile Monica had been captured by Mrs. Bevis, who discoursed to her on a subject painfully familiar to all the old lady’s friends.

’Do you know my son, Mrs. Widdowson?  Oh, I thought you had perhaps met him.  You will do so this evening, I hope.  He is over here on a fortnight’s holiday.’

‘Do you live in Guernsey?’ Monica inquired.

’I practically live here, and one of my daughters is always with me.  The other two live with their brother in a flat in Bayswater.  Do you care for flats, Mrs. Widdowson?’

Monica could only say that she had no experience of that institution.

‘I do think them such a boon,’ pursued Mrs. Bevis.  ’They are expensive but the advantages and comforts are so many.  My son wouldn’t on any consideration give up his flat.  As I was saying, he always has two of his sisters to keep house for him.  He is quite a young man, not yet thirty, but—­would you believe it?—­we are all dependent upon him!  My son has supported the whole of the family for the last six or seven years, and that by his own work.  It sounds incredible, doesn’t it?  But for him we should be quite unable to live.  The dear girls have very delicate health; simply impossible for them to exert themselves in any way.  My son has made extraordinary sacrifices on our account.  His desire was to be a professional musician, and every one thinks