“Why didn’t you turn up last night?” demanded Zoe Dene-Cresswell, stepping in and out of her tiny kitchen in a whirlwind effort to prepare dinner for Pinto, keep “Quelle Vie,” the King Charles spaniel, from the sitting-room cushions, entertain Antonia Verity with an account of her latest incredible adventure, and illustrate how she would play her new part for the Andrea Film Co. There was some reason—connected with the King Charles, or perhaps with keeping the draught from the stove, or was it an amorous Italian gas-fitter who was not to know she was at home?—which rendered it imperative that doors should be perpetually opened and shut as she dashed from room to room; and as there were more doors than sanity could find reason for in the fourth floor flat in Soho, Deb was inhospitably received by a gale of three separate slams, and was compelled to make an informal entrance through the bedroom. All the rooms led into one another, like a flat in farce; and, like a flat in farce, the frequent cupboard doors were constructed sufficiently like the others to trap a headlong fugitive into enforced concealment; and most parts of the wall disconcertingly flew open at a touch.
“It’s all right, Zoe—only Deb,” Antonia called into the kitchen.
“What did you do with Cliffe last night?” Zoe piped shrilly. “Such a perfectly awful thing happened here—I must tell you——”
“We stayed on at Seaview, and only came up this morning—down, Quelle Vie!—Zoe, she’s eating the radishes!”
“Shove her into the bathroom,” indistinctly from Zoe, enveloped in a cloud of steam. “My dear, a simply awful thing—I was just telling Antonia——”
“Here, you bulgy-eyed little brute——”
With a squeal Zoe darted out of the kitchen mists and stopped Deb and the spaniel at the very threshold of the bathroom.
“Come away—I forgot. Benvenuto’s in there—little Carlo from the ‘Napoli’—you know. He’s having a bath.”
“Why?”