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Rh it, with the effect that two minutes later she was in the garden-room, and had deposited her sable coat on the sofa (“Quite shook the room with the weight of it,” said Miss Mapp to herself while she arranged her plan).

She stood looking out of the window for a moment, writhing with humiliation at having to be suppliant to the Member of the British Empire. She tried to remember Mrs. Poppit’s Christian name, and was even prepared to use that, but this crowning ignominy was saved her, as she could not recollect it.

“Such an annoying thing has happened,” she said, though the words seemed to blister her lips. “And you, dear Mrs. Poppit, as a woman of the world, can advise me what to do. The fact is that somehow or other, and I can’t think how, people are saying that the duel last week, which was so happily averted, had something to do with poor little me. So absurd! But you know what gossips we have in our dear little Tilling.”

Mrs. Poppit turned on her a fallen and disappointed face.

“But hadn’t it?” she said, “Why, when they were all laughing about it just now” (“I was right, then,” thought Miss Mapp, “and what a tactless woman!”), “I said I believed it. And I told Mr. Wyse.”

Miss Mapp cursed herself for her frankness. But she could obliterate that again, and not lose a rare (goodness knew how rare!) believer.

“I am in such a difficult position,” she said. “I think I ought to let it be understood that there is no truth whatever in such an idea, however much truth there may be. And did dear Mr. Wyse believe&#8203;—&#8203;in fact, I know he must have, for he wrote me, oh, such a delicate, understanding note. He, at any rate, takes no notice of all that is being said and hinted.”