‘On Slogberry Moor? Why, it’s more than thirty miles away! How are they going to get back?’

‘We didn’t stop to consider that,’ said Skatterly; ‘we asked them to get out for a moment, on the pretence that the car had stuck, and then we dashed off full speed and left them there.’

‘But how dare you do such a thing? It’s most inhuman! Why, it’s been snowing for the last hour.’

‘I expect there’ll be a cottage or farmhouse somewhere if they walk a mile or two.’

‘But why on earth have you done it?’

The question came in a chorus of indignant bewilderment.

‘That would be telling what our characters are meant to be,’ said Vera.

‘Didn’t I warn you?’ said Sir Nicholas tragically to his wife.

‘It’s something to do with Spanish history; we don’t mind giving you that clue,’ said Skatterly, helping himself cheerfully to salad, and then Bertie van Tahn broke forth into peals of joyous laughter.

‘I’ve got it! Ferdinand and Isabella deporting the Jews! Oh lovely! Those two have certainly won the prize; we shan’t get anything to beat that for thoroughness.’

Lady Blonze’s Christmas party was talked about and written about to an extent that she had not anticipated in her most ambitious moments. The letters from Waldo’s mother would alone have made it memorable.