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objected Jolyon. ‘I’m going into my father’s office so I have to learn languages, and after a few hours of those fiendish Chinese verb forms I’m ready for a good game of footer. Or cricket. Anything that means I don’t have to think in tones.’
    ‘At least you’ve got your own tutor,’ said Kiwi. ‘I’ve got to share the science lab with a gang of oafs who just want me to make stinks. Rotten-egg gas. For one of their beastly rags.’
    ‘Hydrogen sulphide,’ said Jane. Kiwi regarded her with approval.
    ‘I say,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a lot of homework. Maths. Are you good at maths?’
    ‘No,’ said Jane, with perfect truth. ‘I am a maths prodigy, my teacher Miss Jones says. I am superbly good at maths.’
    ‘Wait a bit,’ put in Fraser. He pulled Kiwi towards him and hissed, ‘You don’t want to spend the hols reading! What about the treasure?’
    ‘No, but I need to do the homework,’ said Kiwi. ‘She can help me.’
    ‘Beastly swot!’ whispered Fraser.
    ‘I can hear you, you know,’ Jane informed him. ‘And who says I want to spend my holidays helping some boy emerge from his ignorance? As it happens, I don’t.’
    She selected another piece of anchovy toast and ate it in a pointed manner. Ruth, almost bursting with laughter, smothered her face in her napkin. Dot smiled. The boys stared at each other, astounded. They had been willing to bestow the light of their countenances on this girl, even asking for her help, and she had firmly and haughtily rejected them. And she had eaten the last bit of anchovy toast.
    Jane was rapidly gaining their respect.
    Phryne, who had missed this byplay, was rising as her hostess did to retreat to the drawing room for coffee and an end, at last, to this uncomfortable dinner. She was surprised to find that her look of affectionate sympathy to the girls and Dot was being met by muffled giggles.
    ‘Nice to see the young people getting on so well,’ observed Mrs Mason.
    The Phryne party fell over the front doorstep and into the house, shutting the door so they could snicker in comfort. Ruth sat down on the hallstand and almost cried with laughter. Dot chuckled. Jane was puzzled. So was Phryne.
    ‘What was that all about?’ she asked. ‘Come into the kitchen for a nice cup of cocoa and tell me all.’
    They explained. They laughed again. They fed biscuits to Molly, who was ecstatic at their return. They heated the milk and made the hot drinks. Phryne patted Jane on the shoulder.
    ‘It’s all right, Jane dear, you did just the right thing.’
    ‘But what did they expect me to do?’ asked Jane, accepting her cocoa.
    ‘They expected you to be overwhelmed by the honour and spend your holidays doing this boy’s maths for him,’ said Dot. ‘The lazy little toad.’
    ‘But why should I do that?’ Jane asked, genuinely puzzled.
    ‘Because he’s a boy to whom no one has ever refused anything,’ explained Phryne. ‘Because he is used to getting his own way and he probably has a doting mother and several doting sisters who jump to it at his lightest whim.’
    ‘And aunties who knit him socks and nice woolly jumpers,’ added Ruth, mopping her wet face.
    ‘Oh,’ said Jane. ‘Very well then. I think I’ll just take a few of Mr Thomas’s books and go to bed.’
    ‘Me too. Tinker’s coming over at seven and I have to be up early for the deliveries.’ Ruth picked up her cup, then leaned over and kissed Miss Fisher on the cheek. ‘Thank you for a lovely party,’ she said, and giggled her way up the stairs. Yawning, Dot followed.
    ‘I am very proud of my adoptive daughters,’ said Phryne to Molly, who had taken up her usual station on Phryne’s feet. ‘I pity the doctor who tells Jane she can’t do something because she’s a girl. They’ll have to scrape him off the lecture-theatre floor and post him home to Mother. Ah, well, now, I suppose you wouldn’t want to stay here and guard the house, would you, Molly dear? No? Then come up with