Everybody else was frankly interested in Christopher and Nancy, and waited hopefully for them to announce their engagement. “Is it official, yet?” Lady Annabel asked me one day, and when I said, “No,” she assured me that she understood perfectly and that I could rely upon her absolute discretion. The years that she had spent in the Colonial Service, Lady Annabel said, had trained her. Several people came to the dress rehearsal. Mrs. Fazackerly’s father invited himself, to the unspeakable dismay of almost everybody, and General and Mrs. Kendal, of course, were not to be denied. “I think that Amy will be far less nervous if she sees me there,” said Mrs. Kendal, with her kindest smile. “Ahlfred, now, is not nervous--but Amy is. I think she may be less nervous if she sees me there. Call it a mother’s fancy if you like, Sir Miles, but I can’t help thinking that Amy will be far less nervous if she sees me in the front row. So there I shall be.” And there, in fact, she was. Puppa was there, too, although less preoccupied with Amy and Alfred than with the pair of Hessian boots that he had lent for the performance. So long as they were on the stage, he never took his eyes off them. “Is everyone here?” I asked Nancy. “Mrs. Harter is coming. Bill went to fetch her.” She sighed. “It is all very queer, don’t you think--I mean the way in which they go about together. Of course, I’m dreadfully sorry for Bill. I think he’s terribly in love with her.” I was inclined to think so, too, and I found it quite impossible not to watch them both when they arrived together. It was not the first time that Mrs. Harter had come to a rehearsal--it might have been the second, or at most the third. Bill took her straight up to Mary Ambrey after she had received Claire’s very brief greeting and had bowed stiffly in reply to mine. “Will you come into the green room, Mrs. Harter? They’re all getting ready.” “I’m sorry we’re so late,” said Bill. “It was my fault; I started late to fetch her. I’ll just see the curtain go up and then cut off and get into my things. I don’t come on till the middle of the scene.” He marched off to the piano, where Nancy sat already. I heard her say, “Shall I begin the overture?” and Patch answer, “Give her ten minutes to get changed. She says it won’t take her longer than that.” Mrs. Harter, of course, had to be on the stage before anybody else, in order to sing “The Bulbul Ameer.”