The Greatest Works of E. F. Benson (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson

him!"

      "Who else?" said Georgie greedily.

      "My dear, who not else? Marcelle — Marcelle Periscope came another night, Adele, Sophy Alingsby, Bertie Alton, Aggie — I must ask dear Aggie down here; Tony — Tony Limpsfield; a thousand others. And then of course dear Marcia Whitby often. She is giving a ball tomorrow night. I should like to have been there, but I was just finito. Ah, and your friend Princess Isabel. Very bad influenza. You should ring up her house, Georgie, and ask how she is. I called there yesterday. So sad! But let us talk of more cheerful things. Daisy's clock-golf: I must pop in and see her at it tomorrow. She is wonderful, I suppose. I have ordered a set from the Stores, and we will have great games."

      "She's been doing nothing else for weeks," said Georgie. "I dare say she's very good, but nobody takes any interest in it. She's rather a bore about it —"

      "Georgie, don't be unkind about poor Daisy," said Lucia. "We must start little competitions, with prizes. Do you have partners? You and I will be partners at mixed putting. And what about Abfou?"

      It seemed to Georgie that this was just the old Lucia, and so no doubt it was. She was intending to bag any employments that happened to be going about and claim them as her own. It was larceny, intellectual and physical larceny, no doubt, but Lucia breathed life into those dead bones and made them interesting. It was weary work to watch Daisy dabbing away with her putter and then trying to beat her score without caring the least whether you beat it or not. And Daisy even telephoned her more marvellous feats, and nobody cared how marvellous they were. But it would be altogether different if Lucia was the goddess of putting . . .

      "I haven't Abfou'd for ages," said Georgie. "I fancy she has dropped it."

      "Well, we must pick everything up again," said Lucia briskly, "and you shan't be lazy any more, Georgie. Come and play duets. My dear piano! What shall we do?"

      They did quantities of things, and then Lucia played the slow movement of the "Moonlight Sonata," and Georgie sighed as usual, and eventually Lucia let him out and walked with him to the garden-gate. There were quantities of stars, and as usual she quoted "See how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid . . ." and said she must ring him up in the morning, after a good night's rest.

      There was a light in Daisy's drawing-room, and just as he came opposite it she heard his step, for which she had long been listening, and looked out.

      "Is it Georgie?" she said, knowing perfectly well that it must be.

      "Yes," said Georgie. "How late you are."

      "And how is Lucia?" asked Daisy.

      Georgie quite forgot for the moment that Lucia was having complete rest.

      "Excellent form," he said. "Such a talk, and such a music."

      "There you are, then!" said Daisy. "There's nothing the matter with her. She doesn't want rest any more — than the moon. What does it mean, Georgie? Mark my words: it means something."

      * * *

      Lucia, indeed, seemed in no need whatever of complete rest the next day. She popped into Daisy's very soon after breakfast, and asked to be taught how to putt. Daisy gave her a demonstration, and told her how to hold the putter and where to place her feet, and said it was absolutely essential to stand like a rock and to concentrate. Nobody could putt if anyone spoke. Eventually Lucia was allowed to try, and she stood all wrong and grasped her putter like an umbrella, and holed out of the longest of putts in the middle of an uninterrupted sentence. Then they had a match, Daisy proposing to give her four strokes in the round, which Lucia refused, and Daisy, dithering with excitement and superiority, couldn't putt at all. Lucia won easily, with Robert looking on, and she praised Daisy's putter, and said it was beautifully balanced, though where she picked that up Daisy couldn't imagine.

      "And now I must fly," said Lucia, "and we must have a return match sometime. So amusing! I have sent for a set, and you will have to give me lessons. Goodbye, dear Daisy, I'm away for the Sunday at dear Adele Brixton's, but after that how lovely to settle down at Riseholme again! You must show me your ouija-board too. I feel quite rested this morning. Shall I help you with the walking-sticks later on?"

      Daisy went uneasily back to her putting: it was too awful that Lucia in that amateurish manner should have beaten a serious exponent of the art, and already, in dark anticipation, she saw Lucia as the impresario of clock-golf, popularising it in Riseholme. She herself would have to learn to drive and approach without delay, and make Riseholme take up real golf, instead of merely putting.

      Lucia visited the Museum next, and arranged the spit in an empty and prominent place between Daisy's fossils and Colonel Boucher's fragments of Samian ware. She attended the morning parliament on the green, and walked beside Mrs Boucher's bath-chair. She shouted into Mrs Antrobus's ear-trumpet, she dallied with Piggy and Goosie, and never so much as mentioned a duchess. All her thoughts seemed wrapped up in Riseholme; just one tiresome visit lay in front of her, and then, oh, the joy of settling down here again! Even Mrs Boucher felt disarmed; little as she would have thought it, there was something in Lucia beyond mere snobbery.

      Georgie popped in that afternoon about teatime. The afternoon was rather chilly, and Lucia had a fire lit in the grate of the music-room, which, now that the spit had been removed, burned beautifully. Peppino, drowsy with his cold, sat by it, while the other two played duets. Already Lucia had taken down Sigismund's portrait and installed Georgie's watercolours again by the piano. They had had a fine tussle over the Mozart duet, and Georgie had promised to practise it, and Lucia had promised to practise it, and she had called him an idle boy, and he had called her a lazy girl, quite in the old style, while Peppino dozed. Just then the evening post came in, with the evening paper, and Lucia picked up the latter to see what Hermione had said about her departure from London. Even as she turned back the page her eye fell on two or three letters which had been forwarded from Brompton Square. The top one was a large square envelope, the sort of fine thick envelope that contained a rich card of invitation, and she opened it. Next moment she sprang from her seat.

      "Peppino, dear," she cried. "Marcia! Her ball. Marcia's ball tonight!"

      Peppino roused himself a little.

      "Ball? What ball?" he said. "No ball. Riseholme."

      Lucia pushed by Georgie on the treble music-stool, without seeming to notice that he was there.

      "No dear, of course you won't go," she said. "But do you know, I think I shall go up and pop in for an hour. Georgie will come to dine with you, won't you, Georgie, and you'll go to bed early. Half-past six! Yes, I can be in town by ten. That will be heaps of time. I shall dress at Brompton Square. Just a sandwich to take with me and eat it in the car."

      She wheeled round to Georgie, pressing the bell in her circumvolution.

      "Marcia Whitby," she said. "Winding up the season. So easy to pop up there, and dear Marcia would be hurt if I didn't come. Let me see, shall I come back tomorrow, Peppino? Perhaps it would be simpler if I stayed up there and sent the car back. Then you could come up in comfort next day, and we would go on to Adele's together. I have a host of things to do in London tomorrow. That party at Aggie's. I will telephone to Aggie to say that I can come after all. My maid, my chauffeur," she said to the butler, rather in the style of Shylock. "I want my maid and my chauffeur and my car. Let him have his dinner quickly — no, he can get his dinner at Brompton Square. Tell him to come round at once."

      Georgie sat positively aghast, for Lucia ran on like a thing demented. Mozart, ouija, putting, the Elizabethan spit, all the simple joys of Riseholme fizzled out like damp fireworks. Gone, too, utterly gone was her need of complete rest; she had never been so full of raw, blatant, savage vitality.

      "Dear Marcia," she said. "I felt it must be an oversight from the first, but naturally, Georgie, though she and I are such friends, I could not dream of reminding her. What a blessing that my delicious day at Riseholme has so rested me: I feel I could go to fifty balls without fatigue. Such a wonderful house, Georgie; when you come up to stay with us in the autumn, I must take you there. Peppino, is it not lucky that I only brought down here just enough for a couple of nights, and left everything in London to pick up as we came through