“Don’t move,” said Olga, and everybody murmured “Don’t,” or “Please.” Robert said “Please” long after the others, because he was drowsy. But he wanted more music, because he wished to doze a little and not to talk. “How you all work me!” said Lucia, running her hands up and down the piano with a butterfly touch. “London will be quite a rest after Riseholme. Pepino mio, my portfolio on the top of my cloak; would you?... Pepino insisted on my bringing some music: he would not let me start without it.” (This was a piece of picturesqueness during Pepino’s absence: it would have been more accurate to say he was sent back for it, but less picturesque.) “Thank you, _carissimo_. A little morsel of Stravinski; Miss Olga, I am sure, knows it by heart, and I am terrified. Georgie, would you turn over?” The morsel of Stravinski had improved immensely since Friday: it was still very odd, very modern, but not nearly so odd as when, a few days ago, Lucia had failed to observe the change of key. But it was strange to the true Riseholmite to hear the arch-priestess of Beethoven and the foe of all modern music, which she used to account sheer Bolshevism, producing these scrannel staccato tinklings that had so often made her wince. And yet it all fitted in with her approbation of the wireless and her borrowing of Georgie’s manual on Auction Bridge. It was not the morsel of Stravinski alone that Lucia was practising (the performance though really improved might still be called practice): it was modern life, modern ideas on which she was engaged preparatory to her descent on London. Though still in harbour at Riseholme, so to speak, it was generally felt that Lucia had cast off her cable, and was preparing to put to sea. “Very pretty: I call that very pretty. Honk!” said Robert when the morsel was finished, “I call that music.” “Dear Mr. Robert, how sweet of you,” said Lucia, wheeling round on the music-stool. “Now positively, I will not touch another note. But may we, might we, have another little tune on your wonderful wireless, Miss Olga! Such a treat! I shall certainly have one installed at Brompton Square, and listen to it while Pepino is doing his cross-word puzzles. Pepino can think of nothing else now but Auction Bridge and cross-word puzzles, and interrupts me in the middle of my practice to ask for an Athenian sculptor whose name begins with P and is of ten letters.” “Ah, I’ve got it,” said Pepino, “Praxiteles.” Lucia clapped her hands. “Bravo,” she said. “We shall not sit up till morning again.”