Tiddy duly arrived at Wilverley, and that night Cicely and she sat up talking till the small hours. As a rule, the nursing staff took their meals together. Mrs. Roden and Wilverley dined apart. But, inasmuch as Tiddy was Cicely’s friend, the two V.A.D.s were asked to square the family circle at dinner. Tiddy would join the staff on the following morning.

Cicely was amused to see that she made an immense impression both upon Wilverley and his sister, asking innumerable questions, all of them to the point, and describing her experiences in a big Red Cross Hospital in the Midlands, not run upon model lines.

“Friction everywhere,” declared Tiddy. “Matron on bad terms with sisters and nurses, favouritism——”

“Were you a favourite, Miss Tiddle?” asked Wilverley, much amused.

“Yes,” replied Tiddy. “As a martyr I might have stuck it, but just because Daddy weighed in with big cheques they were much too civil to me, and I loathed it. That’s why I’m here to-night,” she concluded with a gay laugh.

“Pray go on,” entreated Mrs. Roden. “This is most instructive. We may profit by your experiences, my dear young lady.”

“As to that,” said Tiddy frankly, “I should keep mum, if I didn’t know from Cis that things are humming along here on the right lines. The poor duchess meant well——”

“The duchess ...?” interrogated Mrs. Roden. To Mrs. Roden a duchess was not quite as other women.

“The Duchess of Mowbray. I thought you knew that I had been working at Harborough Castle.”

“She was a D’Arcy,” murmured Mrs. Roden. “I never speak ill of others or repeat ill-natured gossip. Still ...”

“Please make an exception in this case, my dear Mary,” said Wilverley. Cicely could see that his eyes twinkled. Certainly this rather stodgy man had an elementary sense of humour. But you had to dig deep to find it.

Mrs. Roden said solemnly:

“Her mother was a Dollope. We all know that the Dollopes are ... well ... Dollopes ...!”

“They would be with such a name,” Tiddy observed.

Mrs. Roden continued trenchantly:

“Old Lord D’Arcy was quite impossible. One couldn’t repeat what he did or said.”

“Tell me all about him afterwards,” said Wilverley.

“I am serious, Arthur. Lord D’Arcy was a moral idiot, first and last a crutch man, leaning on others. No sense of responsibility whatever. I could tell you stories ...!”

“But you won’t, Mary. That is so exasperating. However, let him rest in peace!”

“In peace——? I should be false to my faith in the here and the hereafter, if I let pass such a remark. Lord D’Arcy, wherever he may be, is not in peace. But I thought—possibly I am mistaken—that the duchess was in France.”

Tiddy answered promptly:

“She is. She ought to be at home. What has happened? The patients and the servants—oh, those servants!!—get top-hole rations. The nursing-staff were half-starved.”

“Dear, dear!” ejaculated Mrs. Roden. She looked shocked, but she felt somehow rather pleased. The Duchess of Mowbray, before the war, had overlooked Mrs. Roden’s claims to consideration upon more than one occasion. Cicely, not too sharp in such matters, guessed that Tiddy was “making good.”

“Yes,” continued Tiddy cheerfully; “the duchess, you see, arranged with some contractor to feed us, and of course he didn’t.”

“I give undivided attention to these important matters,” said Mrs. Roden.

“I know you do,” said Tiddy.

Presently, the talk drifted into Wilverley’s particular channel. Tiddy listened to him attentively, chipping in, now and again, with apposite remarks that astonished Cicely. Altogether, this first meeting was a small triumph for Miss Tiddle.

“They like you, Tiddy,” said Cicely, as the pair warmed their toes over the bedroom fire.

“I like them, Cis. Mrs. Roden frightens you, I see, but you were right: she’s a scream. I must pull up my socks, and take her as seriously as she takes herself. Lord Wilverley is not quite the bromide you had led me to expect.”

“I never said a word against him.”

“Oh! Didn’t you? Evidently he’s dead nuts on you. Has he proposed, old thing?”

Cicely blushingly admitted that my lord had plunged into water too hot for both of them. Tiddy went on ruthlessly:

“And Romeo with the disconcerting eyes ...?”

“Shut up!”

“I couldn’t, if I tried. Let’s have it fresh from the oven.”

Cicely, after more pressure, gave a not too articulate version of what had passed between Grimshaw and herself. Tiddy listened, with her head on one side, bright-eyed, not unlike a robin watching another robin picking up crumbs. From time to time, she shook her curls impatiently, but she held her tongue till Cicely finished.

Then Miss Tiddle delivered judgment with all the wisdom of youth.

“It seems to me, Cis, that silence has extinguished you.”

Cicely admitted as much proudly.

“We Chandoses are like that.”

“We Chandoses——!” Tiddy laughed scornfully. “Cut all that cackle with me, Cis. I have the greatest contempt for silence. Generally it means stupidity. Idiots say nothing and are proud of it. Really, I’m ashamed of you. However, I daresay I’ve nipped in in time.”

“In time for—what?”

“To put things right. I want to meet your Harry.”

“My Harry! What an idea!”

Tiddy said obstinately: “We Tiddles are like that. We don’t look blandly on when babies are playing on the edge of a precipice. I say that you love Romy; and that Romy loves you. And that hateful Mrs. Grundy stands between you.” Cicely exercised the Chandos gift of silence. Tiddy continued warmly: “You may take Fatty out of pique.”

“Fatty——!”

“I used that word to annoy you, to rouse you. You are quite likely to become fat yourself out of sheer indolence. Some of you swells have brains, but you don’t use ’em. And if you don’t get a move on, you’ll be down and out.”

Cicely murmured deprecatingly:

“Arthur Wilverley is a dear.”

“So is our butler at home. I might do worse than marry him, but I hope to do better.”

“You won’t meet Mr. Grimshaw, Tiddy, because he’s going to France.”

“Settled, is it?”

“Yes. He—he”—her voice faltered—“went away yesterday, so dear Mother wrote.”

“So dear Mother wrote ...! I’ll bet my boots that dear Mother managed all this.”

“She didn’t.”

“Anyhow, you mismanaged it. Well, if Romy cares he’ll come back.”

“Do you think he will?”

“If he cares.”