ge
of a fine afternoon, she had borrowed the Royce and whirled round the
town on a series of calls, leaving P.P.C. cards everywhere, and saying
only (so Miss Mapp gathered from Withers) "Your mistress not in? So
sorry," and had driven away before Withers could get out the information
that her mistress was very much in, for she had a bad cold.

But there were the P.P.C. cards, and the Wyses with their future
connections were going to Whitchurch, and after a few hours of rage
against all that had been going on, without revenge being now possible,
and of reaction after the excitement of it, a different reaction set in.
Odd and unlikely as it would have appeared a month or two earlier, when
Tilling was seething with duels, it was a fact that it was possible to
have too much excitement. Ever since the Contessa had arrived, she had
been like an active volcano planted down among dangerously inflammable
elements, and the removal of it was really a matter of relief. Miss Mapp
felt that she would be dealing again with materials whose properties she
knew, and since, no doubt, the strain of Susan's marriage would soon
follow, it was a merciful dispensation that the removal of the volcano
granted Tilling a short restorative pause. The young couple would be
back before long, and with Susan's approaching elevation certainly going
to her head, and making her talk in a manner wholly intolerable about
the grandeur of the Wyses of Whitchurch, it was a boon to be allowed to
recuperate for a little, before settling to work afresh to combat
Susan's pretensions. There was no fear of being dull: for plenty of
things had been going on in Tilling before the Contessa flared on the
High Street, and plenty of things would continue to go on after she had
taken her explosions elsewhere.

By the time that the second lesson was being read the sun had shifted
from Miss Mapp's face, and enabled her to see how ghastly dear Evie
looked when focussed under the blue robe of Jonah, who was climbing out
of the whale. She had had her disappointments to contend with, for the
Contessa had never really grasped at all who she was. Sometimes she
mistook her for Irene, sometimes she did not seem to see her, but never
had she appeared fully to identify her as Mr. Bartlett's wee wifey. But
then, dear Evie was very insignificant even when she squeaked her
loudest. Her best friends, among whom was Miss Mapp, would not deny
that. She had been wilted by non-recognition; s