Irene, meanwhile, feeling herself excused by long familiarity from paying much attention to the marine deities, had noticed that the loose cretonne covers of the arm-chairs were crumpled. Being naturally tidy—and since she had lived with Aunt Lilian she had had to be tidy for two—she tiptoed across the room to smooth them out. Bending down to the nearest of the chairs, she took hold of the loose cover near the front of the seat and gave it a smart pull down, so as to loosen it completely before she tucked it tidily in again. The stuff came forward like a suddenly bellying sail and with it there was shot out—from nowhere, as though Irene had been doing a conjuring trick—a glittering shower of jewels. They rattled on the floor, they rolled over the tiles. The noise disturbed Miss Thriplow in her rapt and child-like contemplation of the sponge-stone niches. She turned round just in time to see a scarab ring racing towards her, with the limp of an eccentric hoop, across the tiles. Arrived within a few feet of her it lost speed, it staggered, it fell on its side. Miss Thriplow picked it up. “Oh, it’s only my rings,” she said airily, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for her rings to come jumping out of the chair when Irene straightened out the cover. “That’s all,” she added reassuringly to Irene, who was standing, as though petrified by surprise, looking down at the scattered jewels. Mrs. Aldwinkle was fortunately absorbed in telling Calamy about Pasquale da Montecatini. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III