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for the dining room, but although I was also very hungry indeed after my walk, curiosity got the better of me and I stayed to find out what it all meant. It seemed that there had been a burglary during the night and that nearly everybody in the house,except Lord and Lady Montdore, had been roundly robbed of jewels, loose cash, furs and anything portable of the kind that happened to be lying about. What made it particularly annoying for the victims was that they had all been woken up by somebody prowling in their rooms, but had all immediately concluded that it must be Sauveterre, pursuing his well-known hobby, so that the husbands had merely turned over with a grunt, saying, “Sorry, old chap, it’s only me, I should try next door,” while the wives had lain quite still in a happy trance of desire, murmuring such words of encouragement as they knew in French. Or so, at least, they were saying about each other, and, when I passed the telephone box on my way upstairs to change my wet shoes, I could hear Mrs. Chaddesley Corbett’s birdlike twitters piping her version of the story to the outside world. Perhaps the cabinet changes were becoming a little bit of a bore, after all, and these ladies did rather long, at heart, for a new policy.
    The general feeling was now very much against Sauveterre, whose fault the whole thing clearly was. It became positively inflamed when he was known to have had a good night’s rest, to have got up at eight to telephone to his mistress in Paris and then to have gone for a walk with that little girl. (“Not the Bolter’s child for nothing,” I heard somebody say bitterly.) The climax was reached when he was seen to be putting away a huge breakfast of porridge and cream, kedgeree, eggs, cold ham and slice upon slice of toast covered with Cooper’s Oxford. Very un-French, not at all in keeping with his reputation, unsuitable behaviour too, in view of the well-known frailty of his fellow guests. Britannia felt herself slighted by this foreigner. Away with him! And away he went, immediately after breakfast, driving hell for leather to Newhaven to catch the boat for Dieppe.
    “Castle life,” explained his mother, who placidly remained on until Monday, “always annoys Fabrice and makes him so nervous, poor boy.”
    I never saw Sauveterre again and it was to be many years before I even heard his name, but in the end I found myself adopting his little boy, so small is the world, so strange is fate.

Chapter 6

    T HE REST OF that day was rather disorganized. The men finally went off shooting, very late, while the women stayed at home to be interviewed by various Inspectors on the subject of their lost possessions. Of course the burglary made a wonderful topic of conversation and indeed nobody spoke of anything else.
    “I couldn’t care less about the diamond brooch. After all, it’s well insured and now I shall be able to have clips instead which will be far and away smarter. Veronica’s clips always make me miserable, every time I see her, and, besides, that brooch used to remind me of my bogus old mother-in-law too much. But I couldn’t think it more hateful of them to have taken my fur tippet. Burglars never seem to realize one might feel the cold. How would they like it if I took away their wife’s shawl?”
    “Oh, I know. I’m in a terrible do about my bracelet of lucky charms—no value to anybody else—it really is too too sick-making. Just when I had managed to get a bit of hangman’s rope, Mrs. Thompson too, did I tell you? Roly will never win the National now, poor sweet.”
    “With me it’s Mummy’s little locket she had as a child. I can’tthink why my ass of a maid had to go and put it in. She never does as a rule.”
    These brassy ladies became quite human as they mourned their lost trinkets, and now that the men were out of the house they suddenly seemed very much nicer. I am speaking of the Veronica chorus, for Mrs. Chaddesley Corbett herself, in common with Lady