what
anybody else considered was due to her. The sound of that was so
familiar that nobody looked up or asked what was going on.

"Darling Diva and her bawbees, Padre," said Miss Mapp in an aside. "So
modest in her demands. Oh, she's stopped! Somebody has given her
sixpence. Not another rubber? Well, perhaps it is rather late, and I
must say good-night to my flowers before they close up for the night.
All those shillings mine? Fancy!"

Miss Mapp was seething with excitement, curiosity and rage, as with
Major Flint on one side of her and Captain Puffin on the other, she was
escorted home. The excitement was due to her winnings, the rage to Mrs.
Poppit's Order, the curiosity to the clue she believed she had found to
those inexplicable lights that burned so late in the houses of her
companions. Certainly it seemed that Major Flint was trying not to step
on the joints of the paving-stones, and succeeding very imperfectly,
while Captain Puffin, on her left, was walking very unevenly on the
cobbles. Even making due allowance for the difficulty of walking evenly
there at any time, Miss Mapp could not help thinking that a teetotaller
would have made a better job of it than that. Both gentlemen talked at
once, very agreeably but rather carefully, Major Flint promising himself
a studious evening over some very interesting entries in his Indian
Diary, while Captain Puffin anticipated the speedy solution of that
problem about the Roman road which had puzzled him so long. As they said
their "Au reservoirs" to her on her doorstep, they took off their hats
more often than politeness really demanded.

Once in her house Miss Mapp postponed her good-nights to her sweet
flowers, and hurried with the utmost speed of which she was capable to
her garden-room, in order to see what her companions were doing. They
were standing in the middle of the street, and Major Flint, with
gesticulating forefinger, was being very impressive over something....

* * * * *

Interesting as was Miss Mapp's walk home, and painful as was the light
which it had conceivably thrown on the problem that had baffled her for
so long, she might have been even more acutely disgusted had she
lingered on with the rest of the bridge-party in Mrs. Poppit's garden,
so revolting was the sycophantic loyalty of the newly-decorated Member
of the British Empire.... She described minutely her arrival at the
Palace, her momentary nervousness as she