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stood on the pavement outside and appeared to consult an envelope in his hands. He looked up at the front of the flats and then approached the steps.
    â€œIn to the lift!” Henry muttered and opened the doors. Roberta in a state of extreme bewilderment entered the lift. A porter, heavily smart in a dark green uniform and several medals, came out of an office.
    â€œHullo, Stamford,” said Henry. “Good morning to you. Mayling’s got some luggage out there in the car.”
    â€œI’ll attend to it, sir,” said the porter.
    â€œThank you so much,” murmured the Lampreys politely, and Henry added, “His lordship is away this morning, Stamford.”
    â€œIndeed, sir?” said the porter. “Thank you, sir.”
    â€œUp we go,” said Henry.
    The porter shut them in, Henry pressed a button and with a metallic sigh the lift took them to the top of the building.
    â€œStamford doesn’t work the lift,” explained Henry. “He’s only for show and to look after the service flats downstairs.”
    In three days, photographs of the Pleasaunce Court lift would appear in six illustrated papers and in the files of the criminal-investigation department. It would be lit by flash lamps, sealed, dusted with powder, measured and described. It would be discussed by several million people. It was about to become famous. To Roberta it seemed very smart and she did not notice that, like the entrance hall, it had been modernized. The old liftman’s apparatus, a handle projecting from a cylindrical casing was still there but above it was a row of buttons with the Lampreys’ floor, the fourth, at the top. They came out on a well-lit landing with two light green doors numbered 25 and 26. Henry pushed No. 25 open and Roberta crossed a threshold into the past. The sensation of Deepacres, of that still-recurrent dream, came upon her so poignantly that she caught her breath. Here was the very scent of Deepacres, of the scented oil Lady Charles burnt in the drawing-room, of Turkish cigarettes, of cut flowers and of moss. The sense of smell works both consciously and subconsciously. About many households is an individual pleasantness of which human noses are only half aware and which is so subtle that it cannot be traced to one source. The Lampreys’ house-smell, while it might suggest burning cedarwood, scented oil and hothouse flowers, was made up of these things and of something more, something that to Roberta seemed the very scent of their characters. It carried her back through four years and while the pleasure of this experience was still new she saw, in the entrance hall, some of their old possessions: a table, a steel-engraving, a green Chinese elephant. It was with the strangest feeling of familiarity that she heard Lady Charles’s voice crying:
    â€œIs that old Robin Grey?”
    Roberta ran through the doorway into her arms.
    There they all were, in a long white drawing-room with crackling fires at each end and a great gaiety of flowers. Lady Charles, thinner than ever, was not properly up and had bundled herself into a red silk dressing-gown. She wore a net over her grey curls. Her husband stood beside her in his well-remembered morning attitude, a newspaper dangling from his hand, his glass in his eye, and his thin colourless hair brushed across his head. He beamed with pale, myopic eyes at Roberta and inclined his head forward with an obedient air, ready for her kiss. The twins, with shining blond heads and solemn smiles, also kissed her. Patch, an overgrown schoolgirl in a puppy-fat condition, nearly knocked her over, and Mike, eleven years old, looked relieved when Roberta merely shook his hand.
    â€œSuch fun, darling,” said all the Lampreys in their soft voices. “Such fun to see you.”
    Presently they were all sitting before the fire, with Charlot in her chair and Henry in his old place on the hearthrug and the twins collapsed on the sofa.