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ought to go in for psychology, or something like it.’
    They went to two lectures – one on spiritualism, by which they were nervously amused; and one on social pragmatism, which disheartened them.
    After a while, they turned to gambling. They did this not as at any reckless crisis in their lives, but because they needed money for their face-creams and fashion-papers. Industriously, they studied form; jockeys’ names became as familiar to them as their own relations’: secretly (for their husbands would have disapproved), they progressed from little flutters to a cool and steady daily appraisal of all the runners and riders; to having an account with a bookmaker instead of giving half-crowns to Evalie’s gardener. They gave up morning coffee in the town and hurried to one another’s houses to make their plans for the day and to lament or rejoice over the day before. This was more of a tonic to them for having to be indulged in secret. They missed one another very much when the House was sitting and Isabella was obliged to return to Bucking-hamshire.
    That they hid their secret was no credit to their dissembling; for, when they overheard others talking of racing, their faces became so devoid of expression as to have invited suspicion ifanyone had noticed. But they were perhaps beyond the age for being noticed.
    ‘Wouldn’t it be dreadful if we won so much one day – on the accumulator, perhaps – that we had to
tell
!’ Evalie said.
    When their husbands had suggested taking them to Good-wood for a treat, they were full of excuses: they hadn’t the right clothes and their feet would ache. ‘So much bustling about’ and ‘a very tiring day’, they said. Isabella went too far and said that horses frightened her. ‘We are not asking you to ride them,’ Harry had said. ‘You used always to enjoy Ascot.’ ‘Oh, that was in the old days,’ Isabella said. She had meant the days before she took the matter seriously. ‘When I was young,’ she added. ‘And loved nice clothes.’
    ‘My God!’ Evalie said afterwards. ‘We should never have got
on
with them hanging about. And fancy having to go to the Paddock and look at the horses. And ask them to put ten shillings on something – Oliver and Harry I mean.’ ‘And perhaps see Mr Syd Woods himself chalking up the odds. I should faint,’ said Isabella.
    Their complicity was a bond which had loosened when Harry died. Evalie stayed away; for she could not think of anything suitable to say. They missed one another. When, on the Saturday evening, Evalie had telephoned for the first time, she heard with relief Isabella’s laughter, and on Monday morning she was round as usual with
The Sporting Life
hidden at the bottom of her shopping-basket.
    On Thursday morning, Isabella was in the kitchen making a cake. Mrs Dickens was polishing the silver. Her sad and colourless face was reflected in the spoons, first wide, then long, when she turned them over. Isabella, with a cigarette in her mouth, mumbled at Evalie, and felt in her overall-pocket for a piece of paper. ‘So busy this morning. I came to my conclusions directly after breakfast,’ she said mysteriously. ‘You might look it overand see what you think. Oh, damn, now the ash has dropped into the mixture. Never mind, perhaps he will think it’s a seed cake.’
    Mrs Dickens, who guessed what they were up to, could not understand their secrecy.
    ‘What time is he coming?’ Evalie asked.
    If she had been a spy, Mrs Dickens thought, she could not have slipped the paper into her glove more expertly. The only wonder was that she did not swallow it.
    ‘Before lunch. He is staying at Rose Kelsey’s as he obviously couldn’t stay here again, with Laurence away.’
    ‘Oh, naturally not,’ Evalie said.
    ‘At the weekend, Laurence was here all the time.’
    ‘Quite.’
    ‘He has to have the garden-room, they are so full up with Tillotsons.’
    ‘I suppose so,’ Evalie said.
    Mrs Dickens thought their