to Bond Street--not that we've left it--"

"I'm afraid I must leave it now," said Francesca, preparing to turn
up Grafton Street; "Good-bye."

"Must you be going? Come and have tea somewhere. I know of a cosy
little place where one can talk undisturbed."

Francesca repressed a shudder and pleaded an urgent engagement.

"I know where you're going," said Merla, with the resentful buzz of
a bluebottle that finds itself thwarted by the cold unreasoning
resistance of a windowpane. "You're going to play bridge at Serena
Golackly's. She never asks me to her bridge parties."

Francesca shuddered openly this time; the prospect of having to
play bridge anywhere in the near neighbourhood of Merla's voice was
not one that could be contemplated with ordinary calmness.

"Good-bye," she said again firmly, and passed out of earshot; it
was rather like leaving the machinery section of an exhibition.
Merla's diagnosis of her destination had been a correct one;
Francesca made her way slowly through the hot streets in the
direction of Serena Golackly's house on the far side of Berkeley
Square. To the blessed certainty of finding a game of bridge, she
hopefully added the possibility of hearing some fragments of news
which might prove interesting and enlightening. And of
enlightenment on a particular subject, in which she was acutely and
personally interested, she stood in some need. Comus of late had
been provokingly reticent as to his movements and doings; partly,