les than you are," said Mrs. Poppit shrilly. "I was close to
him as he came out: I curtsied to him before I saw."

Miss Mapp instantly changed her attack: she could hardly hold her smile
on to her face for rage.

"How very awkward for you," she said. "What a laugh they will all have
over it this evening! Delicious!"

Mrs. Poppit's face suddenly took on an expression of the tenderest
solicitude.

"I hope, Miss Mapp, you didn't jar yourself when you sat down in the
road just now," she said.

"Not at all, thank you so much," said Miss Mapp, hearing her heart beat
in her throat.... If she had had a naval fifteen-inch gun handy, and had
known how to fire it, she would, with a sense of duty accomplished, have
discharged it point-blank at the Order of the Member of the British
Empire, and at anybody else who might be within range....

* * * * *

Sunday, of course, with all the opportunities of that day, still
remained, and the seats of the auxiliary choir, which were
advantageously situated, had never been so full, but as it was all no
use, the Major and Captain Puffin left during the sermon to catch the
12.20 tram out to the links. On this delightful day it was but natural
that the pleasant walk there across the marsh was very popular, and
golfers that afternoon had a very trying and nervous time, for the
ladies of Tilling kept bobbing up from behind sand-dunes and bunkers,
as, regardless of the players, they executed swift flank marches in all
directions. Miss Mapp returned exhausted about tea-time to hear from
Withers that the Prince had spent an hour or more rambling about the
town, and had stopped quite five minutes at the corner by the
garden-room. He had actually sat down on Miss Mapp's steps and smoked a
cigarette. She wondered if the end of the cigarette was there still: it
was hateful to have cigarette-ends defiling the steps to her front-door,
and often before now, when sketchers were numerous, she had sent her
housemaid out to remove these untidy relics. She searched for it, but
was obliged to come to the reluctant conclusion that there was nothing
to remove....

CHAPTER III

Diva was sitting at the open drawing-room window of her house in the
High Street, cutting with a pair of sharp nail scissors into the old
chintz curtains which her maid had told her no longer "paid for the
mending." So, since they refused to pay for their mending any more, she
was preparing to