st of hundreds of similar
dinners _en famille_? Perhaps, when safely married, Susan would ask her
to one of the family dinners, with a glassful of foam which she called
champagne, and the leg of a crow which she called game from the
shooting-lodge.... There was no use in denying that Mr. Wyse seemed to
be swallowing flattery and any other form of bait as fast as they were
supplied him; never had he been so made up to since the day, now two
years ago, when Miss Mapp herself wrote him down as uncapturable. But
now, on this awful evening of crimson-lake, it seemed only prudent to
face the prospect of his falling into the nets which were spread for
him.... Susan the sister-in-law of a Contessa. Susan the wife of the man
whose urbanity made all Tilling polite to each other, Susan a Wyse of
Whitchurch! It made Miss Mapp feel positively weary of earth....

Nor was this the sum of Miss Mapp's mental activities, as she sat being
dummy to Diva, for, in addition to the rage, despair and disgust with
which these various topics filled her, she had narrowly to watch Diva's
play, in order, at the end, to point out to her with lucid firmness all
the mistakes she had made, while with snorts and sniffs and muttered
exclamations and jerks of the head and pullings-out of cards and
puttings of them back with amazing assertions that she had not quitted
them, she wrestled with the task she had set herself of getting two
no-trumps. It was impossible to count the tricks that Diva made, for she
had a habit of putting her elbow on them after she had raked them in, as
if in fear that her adversaries would filch them when she was not
looking, and Miss Mapp, distracted with other interests, forgot that
no-trumps had been declared and thought it was hearts, of which Diva
played several after their adversaries' hands were quite denuded of
them. She often did that "to make sure."

"Three tricks," she said triumphantly at the conclusion, counting the
cards in the cache below her elbow.

Miss Mapp gave a long sigh, but remembered that Mr. Wyse was present.

"You could have got two more," she said, "if you hadn't played those
hearts, dear. You would have been able to trump Major Benjy's club and
the Padre's diamond, and we should have gone out. Never mind, you played
it beautifully otherwise."

"Can't trump when it's no trumps," said Diva, forgetting that Mr. Wyse
was there. "That's nonsense. Got three tricks. Did go out. Did you think
it was hearts?