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Ladislaw with wide eyes.
    â€œThat would be Napoleon,” said Mrs Peel unerringly.
    â€œOh yes, I suppose it would. But I didn’t really mean anything. I was just thinking about crossword puzzles, and clues. I can’t ever
imagine
being able to make them up.”
    â€œClaudia works too hard,” said Mrs Peel mournfully.
    Still the Professor, gazing through his thick lenses at everybody in turn, said nothing and seemed to listen for something.
    Sal Oliver could see that Claudia was growing anxious about him. She had brought him to Arling—pleased and dazzled, no doubt, as so many people were, by her brilliant efficiency, her charm and good looks—and now it was obvious that family life and family conversation were proving too much for him. Sal knew already that he was unmarried, and lived by himself.
    She turned to him.
    â€œDo you do crossword puzzles?” she enquired.
    Quarrendon shook his head.
    â€œI’m afraid not.”
    â€œNeither do I,” Taffy remarked in a detached tone. “I wish I did, but I can’t see the fascination of them.”
    Claudia smiled at her daughter.
    â€œThat’s all nonsense, really. You
ought
to be very good at them.”
    Taffy smiled back, though shaking her head as if to show that she did not relinquish her point. Quarrendon, turning his eyes on Taffy, this time allowed his gaze to dwell there for a moment, reflectively.
    The air had vibrated with a faint hint of hostility during the brief interchange of words between Claudia and her younger daughter. Perhaps it was that, Sal thought, which had arrested his attention. She wondered whether he was slightly in love with Claudia. A good many people were.
    The conversation went on—inconsequent, cheerful, and allusive.
    â€œClaudia,” Mrs Ladislaw was saying, “you write as well, don’t you?”
    â€œSometimes.”
    â€œYou must tell me where to find your things. I’ve been away so long—I don’t know anything. Six years!”
    â€œOh dear—these children must have changed a great deal” their grandmother suggested.
    (Taffy and Maurice scowled, and even the gentle Sylvia looked indignant.)
    â€œYes. They have, of course. But Claudia hasn’t. She doesn’t look a day older.”
    â€œShe looks thin,” said Mrs Peel. “Yes, darling, you do. You work too hard.”
    â€œHard work never hurt anybody yet,” said Claudia abruptly. “Besides, there isn’t any alternative.”
    For a moment her face looked older, and hard.
    There was a smothered shriek from Taffy. Hastily, although with kindness, she shoved His Lordship off her knee and rushed to the wireless.
    â€œThere’s something I frightfully don’t want to miss,” she explained, with an apologetic look at Sal. “I’ll put it on quite softly.”
    She flung herself onto the floor and began to manipulate knobs.
    â€œYou hadn’t got a wireless when I saw you in London years ago,” said Mrs Ladislaw. “I suppose everybody has one now.”
    â€œNearly every cottage in the village has one,” Sylvia replied.
    â€œThat,” said Mrs Peel regretfully, “is perfect nonsense.”
    Nobody paid the slightest attention to the remark. Of course, thought Sal, it was exactly the kind of thing that one would expect her to say. Women like Mrs Peel had been talking and thinking—in so far as they could be said to think—in that way for years. The difference now was that nobody ever troubled to argue with them, or contradict them.
    â€œIf I love again,”
proclaimed a thin voice from the ether.
    Everybody went on talking.
    Even Taffy, without altering her position on the floor, joined in.
    Then Copper slouched into the room.
    Almost at once he turned to his younger daughter.
    â€œSwitch off that row,” he directed.
    Taffy, looking sulky, obeyed.
    â€œTea, dear? Maurice, let Father have that