ust
needs take off his jacket in the back room and roll up his sleeves and
stamp into the scullery and there splash and rub like a stableman, and
wipe himself on the common rough roller-towel. He said he preferred
the "sink." (Offensive word! He would not even say "slop-stone," which
was the proper word. He said "sink," and again "sink.")

And then, when the meal finally did begin Mrs. Maldon's serviette
and silver serviette-ring had vanished. Impossible to find them! Mr.
Batchgrew had of course horribly disarranged the table, and in the
upset the serviette and ring might have fallen unnoticed into the
darkness beneath the table. But no search could discover them. Had
the serviette and ring ever been on the table at all? Had Rachael
perchance forgotten them? Rachael was certain that she had put them
on the table. She remembered casting away a soiled serviette and
replacing it with a clean one in accordance with Mrs. Maldon's command
for the high occasion. She produced the soiled serviette in proof.
Moreover, the ring was not in the serviette drawer of the sideboard.
Renewed search was equally sterile.... At one moment Mrs. Maldon
thought that she herself had seen the serviette and ring on the
table early in the evening; but at the next she thought she had not.
Conceivably Mr. Batchgrew had taken them in mistake. Yes, assuredly,
he had taken them in mistake--somehow! And yet it was inconceivable
that he had taken a serviette and ring in mistake. In mistake for
what? No!...

Mystery! Excessively disconcerting for an old lady! In the end Rachel
provided another clean serviette, and the meal commenced. But Mrs.
Maldon had not been able to "settle down" in an instant. The wise,
pitying creatures in their twenties considered that it was absurd for
her to worry herself about such a trifle. But was it a trifle? It was
rather a denial of natural laws, a sinister miracle. Serviette-rings
cannot walk, nor fly, nor be annihilated. And further, she had used
that serviette-ring for more than twenty years. However, the hostess
in her soon triumphed over the foolish old lady, and taken the head of
the board with aplomb.

And indeed aplomb had been required. For the guests behaved
strangely--unless it was that the hostess was in a nervous mood for
fancying trouble! Julian Maldon was fidgety and preoccupied. And Louis
himself--usually a model guest--was also fidgety and preoccupied. As
for Rachel, the poor girl had only too obviously