together before, and when quaint Irene at the end said, “Bad luck, Mapp,” Miss Mapp’s hands trembled so much with passion that she with difficulty marked the score. But she could command her voice sufficiently to say, “Lovely of you to be sympathetic, dear.” Irene in answer gave a short, hoarse laugh and dealed.

[40]

By this time Boon had deposited at the left hand of each player a cup containing a red creamy fluid, on the surface of which bubbles intermittently appeared. Isabel, at this moment being dummy, had strolled across from the other table to see that everybody was comfortable and provided with sustenance in times of stress, and here was clearly the proper opportunity for Miss Mapp to take a spoonful of this attempt at red-currant fool, and with a wry face, hastily (but not too hastily) smothered in smiles, to push the revolting compound away from her. But the one spoonful that she took was so delicious and exhilarating, that she was positively unable to be good for Isabel. Instead, she drank her cup to the dregs in an absent manner, while considering how many trumps were out. The red-currant fool made a similarly agreeable impression on Major Flint.

“’Pon my word,” he said. “That’s amazingly good. Cooling on a hot day like this. Full of champagne.”

Miss Mapp, seeing that it was so popular, had, of course, to claim it again as a family invention.

[41] “No, dear Major,” she said. “There’s no champagne in it. It’s my Grandmamma Mapp’s famous red-currant fool, with little additions perhaps by me. No champagne: yolk of egg and a little cream. Dear Isabel has got it very nearly right.”

[41]

The Padre had promised to take more tricks in diamonds than he had the slightest chance of doing. His mental worry communicated itself to his voice.

“And why should there be nary a wee drappie o’ champagne in it?” he said, “though your Grandmamma Mapp did invent it. Weel, let’s see your hand, partner. Eh, that’s a sair sight.”

“And there’ll be a sair wee score agin us when ye’re through with the playin’ o’ it,” said Irene, in tones that could not be acquitted of a mocking intent. “Why the hell—hallelujah did you go on when I didn’t support you?”

Even that one glass of red-currant fool, though there was no champagne in it, had produced, together with the certainty that her opponent had 

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