all that everybody else only whispered; she displayed (in
her basket) all that everybody else covered up with thick layers of
paper. If Miss Mapp had only guessed that the Contessa would have a
market-basket, she would have paraded the High Street with a leg of
mutton protruding from one end and a pair of Wellington boots from the
other.... But who could have suspected that a Contessa....

Black thoughts succeeded. Was it possible that Mr. Wyse had been
satirical about the affairs of Tilling? If so, she wished him nothing
worse than to be married to Susan. But a playful face must be put, for
the moment, on the situation.

"Too lovely of you, dear Contessa," she said. "May we go marketing
together to-morrow, and we will measure the size of our baskets? Such
fun I have, too, laughing at the dear people in Tilling. But what
thrilling news this morning about our sweet Susan and your dear brother,
though of course I knew it long ago."

"Indeed! how was that?" said the Contessa quite sharply.

Miss Mapp was "nettled" at her tone.

"Oh, you must allow me two eyes," she said, since it was merely tedious
to explain how she had seen them from behind a curtain kissing in the
garden. "Just two eyes."

"And a nose for scent," remarked the Contessa very genially.

This was certainly coarse, though probably Italian. Miss Mapp's opinion
of the Contessa fluctuated violently like a barometer before a storm and
indicated "Changeable."

"Dear Susan is such an intimate friend," she said.

The Contessa looked at her very fixedly for a moment, and then appeared
to dismiss the matter.

"My crab, my steak," she said. "And where does your nice Captain, no,
Major Flint live? I have a note to leave on him, for he has asked me to
tea all alone, to see his tiger skins. He is going to be my flirt while
I am in Tilling, and when I go he will break his heart, but I will have
told him who can mend it again."

"Dear Major Benjy!" said Miss Mapp, at her wits' end to know how to deal
with so feather-tongued a lady. "What a treat it will be to him to have
you to tea. To-day, is it?"

The Contessa quite distinctly winked behind her eyeglass, which she had
put up to look at Diva, who whirled by on the other side of the street.

"And if I said 'To-day,'" she remarked, "you would--what is it that that
one says"--and she indicated Diva--"yes, you would pop in, and the good
Major would pay no attention to me. So if I tell you I shall go to-day,
yo