Then Miss Mapp broke into her sunniest smile.

"Oh, I'm so glad you came to say you were sorry!" she said. "Dear Major
Benjy, we're quite friends again."

She dabbed her handkerchief on her eyes.

"So foolish of me!" she said. "Now sit down in my most comfortable chair
and have a cigarette."

Major Flint made a peck at the hand she extended to him, and cleared his
throat to indicate emotion. It really was a great relief to think that
she would not make awful allusions to duels in the middle of
bridge-parties.

"And since you feel as you do about Captain Puffin," she said, "of
course, you won't see anything more of him. You and I are quite one,
aren't we, about that? You have dissociated yourself from him
completely. The fact of your being sorry does that."

It was quite clear to the Major that this condition was involved in his
forgiveness, though that fact, so obvious to Miss Mapp, had not occurred
to him before. Still, he had to accept it, or go unhouseled again. He
could explain to Puffin, under cover of night, or perhaps in
deaf-and-dumb alphabet from his window....

"Infamous, unforgivable behaviour!" he said. "Pah!"

"So glad you feel that," said Miss Mapp, smiling till he saw the entire
row of her fine teeth. "And oh, may I say one little thing more? I feel
this: I feel that the dreadful shock to me of being insulted like that
was quite a lovely little blessing in disguise, now that the effect has
been to put an end to your intimacy with him. I never liked it, and I
liked it less than ever the other night. He's not a fit friend for you.
Oh, I'm so thankful!"

Major Flint saw that for the present he was irrevocably committed to
this clause in the treaty of peace. He could not face seeing it torn up
again, as it certainly would be, if he failed to accept it in its
entirety, nor could he imagine himself leaving the room with a renewal
of hostilities. He would lose his game of golf to-day as it was, for
apart from the fact that he would scarcely have time to change his
clothes (the idea of playing golf in a frock-coat and top-hat was
inconceivable) and catch the 11.20 tram, he could not be seen in
Puffin's company at all. And, indeed, in the future, unless Puffin could
be induced to apologize and Miss Mapp to forgive, he saw, if he was to
play golf at all with his friend, that endless deceptions and
subterfuges were necessary in order to escape detection. One of them
would have to set out ten minutes befor