Kitty kissed her brother and Miss Ponsonby and dug the Cheeper in the ribs in the manner he preferred. She was very fond of them all, and found Miss Ponsonby immeasurably entertaining. Little had she thought, when of old she used joyfully to watch Miss Pansy Ponsonby twist and kick and curl herself about the stage and sing fascinating inanities in her lazy contralto, that they would ever be linked by no common bond. Of course she had known that her brother Anthony was showering flowers, chocolates, suppers, week-ends and air-trips at Miss Ponsonby's nimble feet (the toes of which could bend right back at the joints) but Anthony had been known to shower these things at the feet of others. Certainly Kitty had never expected that he would instal this delightful and expensive being in a real house, have a real infant, and really settle down, albeit socially ostracised in Buckinghamshire because imperfectly married (that was the fault of Pansy's husband, Mr. Jimmie Jenks, who, though he didn't want her himself, selfishly refused to sever the connection irrevocably).
"What's the afternoon news?" enquired Mr. Amherst, as they walked up to the village.
"Haven't seen a paper for half an hour," replied Prideaux, who kept his finger on the pulse of the nation and liked his news up to date. "I've got two five o'clock ones with me, though. The Leeds strike is rather worse, the Sheffield one rather better. The aero bus men are coming out on Monday. Dangerous unrest among Sussex shepherds and Cotswold cowmen." (Agricultural labour was now controlled by the State.) "Lord Backwoods has been speaking to his constituents against the Bill for disfranchising Conscientious Obstructionists of the Mental Progress Acts. A thoroughly seditious speech, of course. Poor old chap, his eldest-son has just got engaged to be married, so there'll be another family of Backwoods babies who ought never to exist. It will hit them heavily financially.... And the International Police have found another underground gun-factory near Munich, under a band-stand. And it's confirmed that old Tommy Jackson is to be Drink Controller."
"Another good butler spoilt," observed Anthony Grammont. "He was a jolly good butler once. And he'll be a jolly bad Drink Controller."
"Dear old Tommy," murmured Miss Ponsonby absently, lifting the Cheeper out of his motor-pram with one strong white hand and balancing him on her ample shoulders. "He was vurry kind to me in the dear old days, when I spent week-ends at Surrey Towers. He used to give me tips on Correct Conduct. I didn't take them; Correct Conduct wasn't what the people there asked me for; but I was grateful to Tommy."
"If," said Anthony, "there is any member of a government department, existing, fallen, or yet to come, who has not in the dear old days been vurry kind to you, my dear Pansy, I should be rather glad to know his name."
"Why, certainly," returned Pansy, with cheerful readiness. "Nicky Chester, the Brains Minister who's making himself such an all-round eternal nuisance, doesn't even realise I exist, and if he did he'd think I oughtn't."
"That's where you're wrong, Pansy," Kitty said. "He thinks everyone ought to exist who does anything as well as you do your things. You're Starred A, aren't you?"
"I've gone and lost the silly old bus ticket," said Pansy indifferently, "but that's what it said, I think." Starred A meant (in the words of the official definition) first-class ability at a branch of work which would not appear to be a valuable contribution to the general efficiency of the State. The Cheeper, child of a starred A mother and a B3 father (Anthony's brains had been reduced by trench-life; he had been quite intelligent at Oxford), was subject neither to bonus nor tax.
"Anyhow," went on Pansy, grinning her wide, sweet, leisurely grin, "I think I see Nicky Chester sendin' me round flowers or goodies after a show! He's seen me, you know: he was in a box the first night of 'Hullo, Peace!' He laughed at the political hits, but my turns left him cold; I guess they weren't brainy enough." She tossed the Cheeper in the air and caught him, strongly and easily. "Make him supple young," she observed, "an' by the time he's six he'll be a star Child Gamboller, fit for revue. He takes after me. Already he can put both his big toes in his little mouth at once."