Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford

drawing-room window and saw Jasper Aspect coming towards the house. He ignored the drive, which twisted and turned among rhododendron bushes like a snake in its death agony (a late Victorian arrangement calculated to make the grounds seem more spacious), and strode carelessly over lawn and flower-beds alike, until, reaching the front door, he gave a tremendous peal to the bell. Mrs Lace meanwhile had escaped to her bedroom. She was delighted by this very unexpected turn of circumstance; she thought Jasper far more attractive than the too-obviously infatuated Noel, but had rather given up hope of his conquest since their meeting at the Jolly Roger. Telling her maid that she would be down in a moment, she hastily proceeded to change her clothes, and her face. Anne-Marie Lace was one of those women who alternate in appearance between the very extremes of squalor and smartness; when she was alone she could never be bothered to brush her hair, varnish her nails, or powder her nose; when in company she was always excessively well turned out. Having now arranged herself to her own satisfaction, she came into the drawing-room so quietly that Jasper who, more from habit than interest, was reading a letter he had found on the writing-table, gave a guiltystart. Mercifully, however, Mrs Lace appeared to notice nothing, and greeted him with effusion.
    ‘This is nice of you,’ she cried,
‘enchantée de vous voir,’
and she proceeded to sweep about the room in a highly theatrical manner, patting up cushions and tidying away books and newspapers with a variety of stunning gestures. These antics put Jasper in mind of some actress who is left alone on the stage for a few moments after the curtain has gone up.
    ‘That’s better now,’ she said, smiling at him with wide-opened eyes, ‘my little darlings have been romping in here, and you know how children upset everything in a room. Won’t you sit down and have a cigarette?’ She lit one for him, which gave her another excuse for some highly theatrical gestures.
    ‘Now,’ she said, ‘we can have a nice cosy gossip. There are so many things I have been longing to ask you, but you weren’t very kind to me last time we met.’
    ‘Ah! but we were talking politics then,’ said Jasper, as though to imply that more personal topics were now about to be broached. ‘But what is it you wanted to ask me?’
    ‘To begin with, what exactly persuaded you and Noel to come down to poor dead-alive old Chalford? That naughty Noel is always so vague about it when I ask him.’
    ‘I expect he is,’ said Jasper.
    ‘You know, Mr Aspect, I am very fond of Noel and I’m afraid he is the tiniest little bit in love with me, but —’
    ‘But what?’ Jasper thought that in his whole career he had never had sex appeal thrown at his head more deliberately or with less effect. He was profoundly unattracted by Mrs Lace, and decided that it would be a generous and inexpensive gesture if he made a present of her to Noel, lock, stock and barrel.
    Mrs Lace continued, ‘Well, I don’t think I could ever fall for someone like Noel, although he’s most awfully sweet, isn’t he?’
    ‘Why couldn’t you fall for him?’
    ‘I suppose it’s because he is so – so indefinite.’
    ‘Perhaps it may be difficult for him, in the circumstances, to bevery definite,’ said Jasper, wrapping up Mrs Lace in a brown paper parcel, as it were, before handing her over, once and for all, to his friend.
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘Perhaps his position, at the moment, is a bit equivocal.’
    Mrs Lace wrinkled her forehead and gazed inquiringly at Jasper.
    ‘But, of course, you have guessed long ago.’
    ‘I should very much like to know for certain,’ said Mrs Lace, who naturally had no idea at all of Jasper’s meaning.
    ‘It is impossible, without a breach of confidence, to tell you everything. The most that I am permitted to say is that if you think you have an idea of whom he really is, you are probably