. She
could not possibly tell Mrs Clayton Vernon that she was the bearer of
hot potatoes to her son. She scarcely knew Mrs Clayton Vernon, had only
met her once at a bazaar! With a convulsive unconscious movement her
right hand clenched nervously within her muff and crushed the rich mealy
potato it held until the flesh of the potato was forced between the
fingers of her glove. A horrible sticky mess! That is the worst of a
high-class potato, cooked, as the Five Towns phrase it, "in its jacket."
It will burst on the least provocation. There stood Mrs Swann, her right
hand glued up with escaped potato, in the sober grandeur of Mrs Clayton
Vernon's hall, and Mrs Clayton Vernon bearing down upon her like a
Dreadnought.

Steam actually began to emerge from her muff.

"Ah!" said Mrs Clayton Vernon, inspecting Mrs Swann. "It's Mrs Swann!
How do you do, Mrs Swann?"

She seemed politely astonished, as well she might be. By a happy chance
she did not perceive the wisp of steam. She was not looking for steam.
People do not expect steam from the interior of a visitor's muff.

"Oh!" said Mrs Swann, who was really in a pitiable state. "I'm sorry to
trouble you, Mrs Clayton Vernon. But I want to speak to Gilbert for one
moment."

She then saw that Mrs Clayton Vernon's hand was graciously extended.
She could not take it with her right hand, which was fully engaged with
the extremely heated sultriness of the ruined potato. She could not
refuse it, or ignore it. She therefore offered her left hand, which Mrs
Clayton Vernon pressed with a well-bred pretence that people always
offered her their left hands.

"Nothing wrong, I do hope!" said she, gravely.

"Oh no," said Mrs Swann. "Only just a little matter which had been
forgotten. Only half a minute. I must hurry off at once as I have to
meet my husband. If I could just see Gilbert--"

"Certainly," said Mrs Clayton Vernon. "Do come into the breakfast-room,
will you? We've just finished dinner. We had it very early, of course,
for the concert. Mr Millwain--my cousin--hates to be hurried. Maria, be
good enough to ask Mr Swann to come here. Tell him that his mother
wishes to speak to him."

In the breakfast-room Mrs Swann was invited, nay commanded by Mrs
Clayton Vernon, to loosen her mantle. But she could not loosen her
mantle. She could do nothing. In clutching the potato to prevent bits of
it from falling out of the muff, she of course effected the precise
opposite of her purpo