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230 generally told by her mother that she did not care for bridge, and so there was no cutting out, but only a pleasant book for Isabel. But what would be done with ten? It was idle to hope that Susan would sit out: as hostess she always considered it part of her duties to play solidly the entire evening. Still, if the cutting of cards malignantly ordained that Miss Mapp was ejected, it was only reasonable to expect that after her magnanimity to the United Services, either Major Benjy or Captain Puffin would be so obdurate in his insistence that she must play instead of him, that it would be only ladylike to yield.

She did not, therefore, allow this possibility to dim the pleasure she anticipated from the discomfiture of darling Diva, who would be certain to appear in the kingfisher-blue tea-gown, and find herself ghastly and outshone by the crimson-lake which was the colour of Mrs. Trout’s second toilet, and Miss Mapp, after prolonged thought as to her most dramatic moment of entrance in the crimson-lake, determined to arrive when she might expect the rest of the guests to have already assembled. She would risk, it is true, being out of a rubber for a little, since bridge might have already begun, but play would have to stop for a minute of greetings when she came in, and she would beg everybody not to stir, and would seat herself quite, quite close to Diva, and openly admire her pretty frock, “like one I used to have...!”

It was, therefore, not much lacking of ten o’clock when, after she had waited a considerable time on Mrs. Poppit’s threshold, Boon sulkily allowed her to enter, but gave no answer to her timid inquiry of: “Am I very late, Boon?” The drawing-room door was a little ajar, and as she took off the cloak that masked the splendour of