med delighted to let Miss Mapp get this particular word in
edgewise, and after a little speech from Mr. Wyse, in which he said that
he would not dream of allowing them to go yet, and immediately
afterwards shook hands warmly with them both, hoping that the reservoir
would be a very small one, the two were forced to leave the artful Susan
in possession of the field....

It all looked rather black. Miss Mapp's vivid imagination altogether
failed to picture what Tilling would be like if Susan succeeded in
becoming Mrs. Wyse and the sister-in-law of a countess, and she sat down
in her garden-room and closed her eyes for a moment, in order to
concentrate her power of figuring the situation. What dreadful people
these climbers were! How swiftly they swarmed up the social ladder with
their Rolls-Royces and their red-currant fool, and their sables! A few
weeks ago she herself had never asked Susan into her house, while the
very first time she came she unloosed the sluices of the store-cupboard,
and now, owing to the necessity of getting her aid in stopping that
mischievous rumour, which she herself had been so careful to set on
foot, regarding the cause of the duel, Miss Mapp had been positively
obliged to flatter and to "Susan" her. And if Diva's awful surmise
proved to be well-founded, Susan would be in a position to patronize
them all, and talk about counts and countesses with the same air of
unconcern as Mr. Wyse. She would be bidden to the Villa Faraglione, she
would play bridge with Cecco and Amelia, she would visit the Wyses of
Whitchurch....

What was to be done? She might head another movement to put Mr. Wyse in
his proper place; this, if successful, would have the agreeable result
of pulling down Susan a rung or two should she carry out her design. But
the failure of the last attempt and Mr. Wyse's eminence did not argue
well for any further manoeuvre of the kind. Or should she poison Mr.
Wyse's mind with regard to Susan?... Or was she herself causelessly
agitated?

Or----

Curiosity rushed like a devastating tornado across Miss Mapp's mind,
rooting up all other growths, buffeting her with the necessity of
knowing what the two whom she had been forced to leave in the garden
were doing now, and snatching up her opera-glasses she glided upstairs,
and let herself out through the trap-door on to the roof. She did not
remember if it was possible to see Mr. Wyse's garden or any part of it
from that watch-tower, but the