As the days passed she found herself wondering what was the earliest day she could return. If she made it the Friday night, would it arouse suspicion? She decided that it would, and settled to leave Eastbourne on the Saturday afternoon. As the train steamed out of the station she made a grimace in the direction of the town, just as an inoffensive and prematurely bald little man opposite looked up from his paper. He gave Patricia one startled look through his gold-rimmed spectacles and, for the rest of the journey, buried himself behind his paper, fearful lest Patricia should "make another face at him," as he explained to his mother that evening. "She's come home in a nice temper!" was Miss Wangle's diagnosis of the mood in which Patricia reached Galvin House. Gustave regarded her with anxious concern. The first dinner drove her almost mad. The raid, as a topic of conversation, was on the wane, although Mr. Bolton worked at it nobly, and Patricia found herself looked upon to supply the necessary material for the evening's amusement. What had she done? Where had she been? Had she bathed? Were the dresses pretty? How many times had Bowen been down? Had she met any nice people? Was it true that the costumes of the women were disgraceful? At last, with a forced laugh, Patricia told them that she must have "notice" of such questions, and everybody had looked at her in surprise, until Mr. Bolton's laugh rang out, and he explained the parliamentary allusion. When at last, under pretence of being tired, she was able to escape to her room, she felt that another five minutes would have turned her brain. Sunday dawned, and with it the old panorama of iterations unfolded itself: Mr. Bolton's velvet coat and fez, Mr. Cordal's carpet slippers with the fur tops, Mrs. Barnes' indecision, Mr. Sefton's genial and romantic optimism, Miss Sikkum's sumptuary excesses; all presented themselves in due sequence just as they had done for--"was it centuries?" Patricia asked herself. To crown all it was a roast-pork Sunday, and the reek of onions preparing for the seasoning filled the house. Patricia felt that the fates were fighting against her. In nerving herself for the usual human Sunday ordeal, she had forgotten the vegetable menace, in other words that it was "pork Sunday." Mr. Bolton was always more than usually trying on Sundays; but reinforced by onions he was almost unbearable. Patricia fled. It was the Sunday before August Bank Holiday. Patricia shuddered at the remembrance. It meant that people were away. She did not pause to think that her world was at home, pursuing its various paths whereby to cultivate an appetite worthy of the pork that was even then sizzling in the Galvin House kitchen under the eagle eye of the cook, who prided herself on her "crackling," which Galvin House crunched with noisy gusto.