"Ah!" cried Grizel deeply. She leant her elbow on her knee and bent forward, her expression one of breathless eagerness. "Then you are the very person I've been looking for! You can tell me something I've been dying to know... What is your opinion about Lard?" Mrs Ritchards gasped, the other listeners gasped also. Martin choked, turned the choke into a cough, and became suddenly engrossed in the china on the mantelpiece. "Lard! Lard!" Mrs Ritchards struggled with the inevitable disability to define a well-known article. "But surely... surely... In what respect did you want my opinion?" "About allowing it, of course, and if one should. Cook asked if I did, and it seemed such a complex question, and there was an implication about dripping--and the colour of something,--dark versus light. I got hopelessly confused!" Mrs Ritchards did not allow lard. "It's a question of sufficient heat," she maintained. "If they get the dripping hot enough, it does perfectly well. It must boil till you see a blue smoke..." Grizel seized an ivory tablet, and made a hurried note. "Till you see a blue smoke...! I'll bring that in to-morrow, and confound her with my knowledge. Thank you so much. That's quite a relief." She pushed aside the tablet, straightened her back and looked around with a bright, challenging glance. The subject of lard was exhausted, and she was ready to pass on to pastures new. "Are you fond of games, Mrs Beverley?" Teresa asked, eager to secure another member for her various clubs, and feeling that the moment was a convenient one for introducing the subject. "We have a good tennis club, and ladies can play golf every day but Saturday, on the Links. It would be so nice if you would join. We have tea every afternoon. The members take it in turns to provide the cakes." "How nice!" cried Grizel with a gush. "I adore cakes. I'll join certainly, if you'll promise I need never play. It bores me so to run about after balls. I never can catch them, and I don't want to, so why should I try? Really"--she dropped her chin sententiously--"it's a waste of time!" The Vicar's wife saw _her_ opportunity, and grasped it. "I agree with you, Mrs Beverley. The tendency of the age is to spend far too much time over games. My husband considers that it is a national danger. There are so many other things better worth doing!" "Oh, yes," cried Grizel promptly. "There's bridge." The strain of the conversation was beginning to tell, and she told herself impatiently that she would _not_ be "preached." "Bridge is so comfy; you can sit still, and have a cushion to your back, and smoke, and talk between the deals. It's quite a good way of getting through the afternoon. What stakes do you play for here?" The women in the company who played for money looked at the Vicar's wife and were silent. Those who did not, felt virtuous, and looked it.