I shut my eyes. Sometimes, when Mrs. Aldwinkle interpellated me, I said yes or no, without much regard to the sense of her remark. Discussion raged around me. From the alembication of my poetry they had gone on to art in general. Crikey, I said to myself, crikey.... I did my best to close the ears of my mind; and for some little time I did, indeed, contrive to understand nothing of what was said. I thought of Miss Carruthers, of Fluffy and Mr. Brimstone, of Gog’s Court and Mr. Bosk. Mrs. Aldwinkle’s voice, raised by irritation to a peculiar loudness, made itself audible to my muffled mind. “How often have I told you, Cardan,” it said, “that you understand nothing of modern art?” “At least a thousand times,” Mr. Cardan replied cheerfully. “But bless your heart,” he added (and I opened my eyes in time to see his benevolent smile), “I never mind at all.” The smile was evidently too much for Mrs. Aldwinkle’s patience. With a gesture of a queen who implies that the audience is at an end she rose from her seat. “Just time,” she said, looking at her watch, “there’s just time. I really must give Mr. Chelifer some idea of the inside of the palace before lunch. You’d like to come?” She smiled at me like a Siren. Too polite to remind her of her recent outburst against the little niece, I declared myself delighted by the idea. Wamblingly I followed her into the house. Behind me I heard the young rower exclaiming on a note of mingled astonishment and indignation: “But a moment ago she was saying that Mr. Chelifer was too ill to....” “Ah, but that was different,” said the voice of the red-faced man. “Why was it different?” “Because, my young friend, the other fellow is in all cases the rule; but _I_ am invariably the exception. Shall we follow?” Mrs. Aldwinkle made me look at painted ceilings till I almost fell down from giddiness. She dragged me through room after baroque room; then drove me up dark stairs into the Middle Ages. By the time we were back in the _trecento_ I was so much exhausted that I could hardly stand. My knees trembled, I felt sick. “This is the old armoury,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle with mounting enthusiasm. “And there are the stairs leading up to the tower.” She pointed to a low archway, through which, in a dusty twilight, the bottom of a steep stair could be seen corkscrewing up to unknown heights. “There are two hundred and thirty-two steps,” she added. At this moment the gong for luncheon rumbled remotely from the other end of the huge empty house. “Thank God!” said the red-faced man devoutly.