Lucia was beginning to feel sick with envy. She pictured to herself the glory of having taken her party across to Olga’s after dinner last night, of having played the accompaniments instead of Georgie (who was a miserable accompanist), of having been persuaded afterward to give them the little morsel of Stravinski, which she had got by heart. How brilliant it would all have been; what a sumptuous paragraph Hermione would have written about her week-end! Instead of which Olga had sung to those old Bouchers, neither of whom knew one note from another, nor cared the least for the distinction of hearing the prima-donna sing in her own house. The bitterness of it could not be suppressed. “Dear old Schubert songs!” she said with extraordinary acidity. “Such sweet old-fashioned things. ‘Wiedmung,’ I suppose.” “No, that’s by Schumann,” said Georgie, who was nettled by her tone, though he guessed what she was suffering. Lucia knew he was right, but had to uphold her own unfortunate mistake. “Schubert, I think,” she said. “Not that it matters. And so, as dear old Pepys said, and so to bed?” Georgie was certainly enjoying himself. “Oh no, we didn’t go to bed till terribly late,” he said. “But you would have hated to be there, for what we did next. We turned on the gramophone----” Lucia gave a little wince. Her views about gramophones as being a profane parody of music, were well known. “Yes, I should have run away then,” she said. “We turned on the gramophone and danced!” said Georgie firmly. This was the worst she had heard yet. Again she pictured what yesterday evening might have been. The idea of having popped in with her party after dinner, to hear Olga sing, and then dance impromptu with a prima-donna and a princess.... It was agonizing: it was intolerable. She gave a dreadful little titter. “How very droll!” she said. “I can hardly imagine it. Mrs. Boucher in her bath-chair must have been an unwieldy partner, Georgie. Are you not very stiff this morning?” “No, Mrs. Boucher didn’t dance,” said Georgie with fearful literalness. “She looked on and wound up the gramophone. Just we four danced: Olga and the Princess and Colonel Boucher and I.” Lucia made a great effort with herself. She knew quite well that Georgie knew how she would have given anything to have brought her party across, and it only made matters worse (if they could be made worse) to be sarcastic about it and pretend to find it all ridiculous. Olga certainly had left her and her friends alone, just as she herself had left Riseholme alone, in this matter of her week-end party. Yet it was unwise to be withering about Colonel Boucher’s dancing. She had made it clear that she was busy with her party, and but for this unfortunate accident of Olga’s coming down, nothing else could have happened in Riseholme that day except by her dispensing. It was unfortunate, but it must be lived down, and if dear old Riseholme was offended with her, Riseholme must be propitiated.