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."

"What a bore for you," said Scrap. "That's what mother's always
doing--inviting authors. I hate authors. I wouldn't mind them so much
if they didn't write books. Go on about Mellersh," she said, turning
to Mrs. Wilkins.

"Really--" said Mrs. Fisher.

"All those empty beds," said Mrs. Wilkins.

"What empty beds?" asked Scrap.

"The ones in this house. Why, of course they each ought to have
somebody happy inside them. Eight beds, and only four people. It's
dreadful, dreadful to be so greedy and keep everything just for
oneself. I want Rose to ask her husband out too. You and Mrs. Fisher
haven't got husbands, but why not give some friend a glorious time?"

Rose bit her lip. She turned red, she turned pale. If only
Lotty would keep quiet, she thought. It was all very well to have
suddenly become a saint and want to love everybody, but need she be so
tactless? Rose felt that all her poor sore places were being danced
on. If only Lotty would keep quiet . . .

And Mrs. Fisher, with even greater frostiness than that with
which she had received Lady Caroline's ignorance of the Blessed
Damozel, said, "There is only one unoccupied bedroom in this house."

"Only one?" echoed Mrs. Wilkins, astonished. "Then who are in
all the others?"

"We are," said Mrs. Fisher.

"But we're not in all the bedrooms. There must be at least six.
That leaves two over, and the owner told us there were