Vicky raised her eyes from the chocolates. "Oh, Mary, you must be completely addled! Why on earth should poor Ermyntrude suddenly become reticent and dignified, when that isn't her line at all? She couldn't put over an act like that, which is why I think it's so right of her just to play herself, if you know what I mean."
"Leaving your mother out of the discussion," said Hugh, "what part are you proposing to play?"
"It depends," replied Vicky. "How hellish! I've struck a hard chocolate which is wholly inedible. What on earth will I do with it?"
"I wish you'd stop eating chocolates!" said Mary crossly. "Is this quite the moment?"
Vicky wrinkled her brow. "Well, I didn't have any tea, and quite truthfully I don't see anything particularly irreverent about it. In fact, darling, you're being fairly fraudulent yourself, when you come to consider it.
What's more, the whole situation seems to me so awful that if you're going to make it worse, by putting over a pious act of your own, life will become definitely unbearable."
"I'm sorry if I sounded artificially pious," replied Mary. "I suppose you feel that you helped to make things more bearable by telling that policeman all about Baker?"
"I wouldn't wonder. I get very brilliant in my bath, and I had a bath before I came down, and I decided that if you've got a dissolute secret which is practically bound to come to light, you'd much better be the first person to mention it. Moreover," she added, eyeing the chocolates with her head on one side, "it took the Inspector's mind off me for the moment, which I particularly wanted to do."
"Particularly wanted to do?"
"Well, I've got to think up a convincing excuse for being practically on the scene of the crime, haven't I?"