of you, Claire. But you shouldn’t have bothered.”

Claire Lippett, daughter of Willoughby Braddock’s autocratic housekeeper and cook and maid-of-all-work at San Rafael, was a survivor of the Midways epoch. She had entered the Derrick household at the age of twelve, her duties at that time being vague and leaving her plenty of leisure for surreptitious bird’s-nesting with Kay, then thirteen. On her eighteenth birthday she had been promoted to the post of Kay’s personal maid, and from that moment may be said formally to have taken charge. The Lippett motto was Fidelity, and not even the famous financial crash had been able to dislodge this worthy daughter of the clan. Resolutely following Kay into exile, she had become, as stated, Mr. Wrenn’s cook. And, as Mr. Braddock had justly remarked, a very bad cook too.{36}

{36}

“You oughtn’t to go getting yourself all tired, Miss Kay. You ought to be sitting at your ease.”

“Well, so I am,” said Kay.

There were times when, like Mr. Braddock, she found the Lippett protectiveness a little cloying. She was a high-spirited girl and wanted to face the world with a defiant “Who cares?” and it was not easy to do this with Claire coddling her all the time as if she were a fragile and sensitive plant. Resistance, however, was useless. Nobody had ever yet succeeded in curbing the motherly spirit of the Lippetts, and probably nobody ever would.

“Meantersay,” explained Claire, adjusting the footstool, “you ought not to be soiling your hands with work, that’s what I mean. It’s a shame you should be having to——”

She stopped abruptly. She had picked up the tea tray and made a wounding discovery.

“You haven’t touched my rock cakes,” she said in a voice in which reproach and disappointment were nicely blended. “And I made them for you special.”

“I didn’t want to spoil my dinner,” said Kay hastily. Claire was a temperamental girl, quick to resent slurs on her handiwork. “I’m sure you’ve got something nice.”

Claire considered the point.

“Well, yes and no,” she said. “If you’re thinking of the pudding, I’m afraid that’s off. The kitten fell into the custard.”

“No!”

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