“Oh, tell me some of her amusing little speeches!” said Miss Mapp enthusiastically. “I can’t always follow her, but you are so quick! A little coarse too, at times, isn’t she? What she said the other night when she was playing Patience, about the queens and kings, wasn’t quite—was it? And the toothpick.”
“Yes. Toothpick,” said Diva.
“Perhaps she has bad teeth,” said Miss Mapp; “it runs in families, and Mr. Wyse’s, you know—We’re lucky, you and I.”
Diva maintained a complete silence, and they had now come nearly as far as her door. If she would not give the information that she knew Miss Mapp longed for, she must be asked for it, with the uncertain hope that she would give it then.
“Been playing bridge lately, dear?” asked Miss Mapp.
“Quite lately,” said Diva.
“I thought I heard you say something about it to the Contessa. Yesterday, was it? Whom did you play with?”
Diva paused, and, when they had come quite to her door, made up her mind.
“Contessa, Susan, Mr. Wyse, me,” she said.
“But I thought she never played with Mr. Wyse,” said Miss Mapp.