"You can try to turn it into a joke as much as you like, but you won't succeed in getting me to see the humour of it. You pitchforked us into a perfectly ghastly scene - in front of that Inspector, too! - and though I don't expect you to care about my feelings, I should have thought you'd have had more consideration for your mother than to have upset her like that."
"Darling, you simply can't imagine how resilient the poor lamb is! Besides, I've told Robert to look in this evening. To catch her first bounce, you know, because I quite agree it would be fatal for her just to trickle away to some frightful person on the boundary."
"Vicky, how can you talk like that?"
Vicky stretched out a hand towards a dish of grapes. "But, dearest pet, I don't see that it would be a bit helpful of me to pretend that Ermyntrude isn't the sort of darling idiot who'll make the most unparalleled muck of things, if not cherished by a Good Man. Well, I mean to say, just look at the way she fell for Wally, who was an utter loss! Naturally, you don't see it as I do, because she isn't your mother; but it's no good expecting me to sit back in a well-bred way while she lets a boa-constrictor like Alexis coil himself all round her."
"You're impossible," said Mary hopelessly. "Did it occur to you, when you deliberately played on her feelings, that the one thing she's been dreading, ever since Sunday, was that you'd be accused of having had something to do with Wally's death?"
"Oh, then that was why she reacted so superbly! I must say, I didn't expect her to turn on Alexis quite so fiercely. Now you come to mention it, though, I did think something was weighing on her mind. Did she tell you about it?"
Just now. Perhaps you'll soothe her yourself the next time you elect to drive her into hysterics!"
"I don't suppose I will," said Vicky, considering it.
"You're so much better at it than I am. Are you going to the Inquest tomorrow?"
"No, and I hope you're not either!"