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Richard Morfe flushed faintly. Mary Morfe grew more pallid.

“I really must apologize for coming in like this,” said Eva, as she shook hands cordially with Mary Morfe. She knew Mary very well indeed. For Mary was the “librarian” of the glee and madrigal club; Mary never missed a rehearsal, though she cared no more for music than she cared for the National Debt. She was a perfect librarian, and very good at unofficially prodding indolent members into a more regular attendance too.

“Not at all!” said Mary. “We were only reading; you aren’t disturbing us in the least.” Which, though polite, was a lie.

And Eva Harracles sat down between them. And brother and sister abandoned their literature.

“I can’t stop,” said she, glancing at the clock immediately in front of her eyes. “I must catch the last car for Silverhays.”

“You’ve got twenty minutes yet,” said Mr Morfe.

“Because,” said Eva, “I don’t want that walk from Turnhill to Silverhays on a dark night like this.”

“No, I should think not, indeed!” said Mary Morfe.

“You’ve got a full twenty minutes,” Mr Morfe repeated. The clock showed three minutes past nine.

The electric cars to and from the town of Turnhill were rumbling past the very door of the Morfes every five minutes, and would continue to do so till midnight. But Silverhays is a mining village a couple of miles beyond Turnhill, and the service between Turnhill and Silverhays ceases before ten o’clock. Eva’s father was a colliery manager who lived on the outskirts of Silverhays.

“I’ve got a piece of news,” said Eva.

“Yes?” said Mary Morfe

Mr Morfe was taciturn. He stooped to nourish the fire.

“About Mr Loggerheads,” said Eva, and stared straight at Mary Morfe.

“About Mr Loggerheads!” Mary Morfe echoed, and stared back at Eva. And the atmosphere seemed to have been thrown into a strange pulsation.

Here perhaps I ought to explain that it was not the peculiarity of Mr Loggerheads’ name that produced the odd effect. Loggerheads is a local term for a harmless plant called the knapweed (centaurea nigra), and it is also the appellation of a place and of quite excellent people, and no one regards it as even the least bit odd.

“I’m told,” said Eva, “that he’s going into the Hanbridge Choir!”

Mr Loggerheads was the principal tenor of the Bursley Glee and Madrigal Club. And he was reckoned one of the finest “after-dinner tenors” in the Five Towns. The Hanbridge Choir was a rival organization, a vast and powerful affair that fascinated and swallowed promising singers from all the choirs of the vicinity. The Hanbridge Choir had sung at Windsor, and since that event there had been no holding it. All other choirs hated it with a homicidal hatred.

“I’m told,” Eva proceeded, “that the Birmingham and Sheffield Bank will promote him to the cashiership of the Hanbridge Branch on the understanding that he joins the Hanbridge Choir. Shows what influence they have! And it shows how badly the Hanbridge Choir wants him.”

(Mr Loggerheads was cashier of the Bursley branch of the Birmingham and Sheffield Bank.)

“Who told you?” asked Mary Morfe, curtly.

Richard Morfe said nothing. The machinations of the manager of the Hanbridge Choir always depressed and disgusted him into silence.

“Oh!” said Eva Harracles. “It’s all about.” (By which she meant that it was in the air.) “Everyone’s talking of it.”

“And do they say Mr Loggerheads has accepted?” Mary demanded.

“Yes,” said Eva.

“Well,” said Mary, “it’s not true!… A mistake!” she added.

“How do you know it isn’t true?” Mr Morfe inquired doubtfully.

“Since you’re so curious,” said Mary, defiantly, “Mr Loggerheads told me himself.”

“When?”

“The other day.”

“You never said anything to me,” protested Mr Morfe.

“It didn’t occur to me,” Mary replied.

“Well, I’m very glad!” remarked Eva Harracles. “But I thought I ought to let you know at once what was being said.”

Mary Morfe’s expression conveyed the fact that in her opinion Eva Harracles’ evening call was a vain thing, too lightly undertaken, and conceivably lacking in the nicest discretion. Whereupon Mr Morfe was evidently struck by the advisability of completely changing the subject. And he did change it. He began to talk about certain difficulties in the choral parts of Havergal Brian’s Vision of Cleopatra, a work which he meant the Bursley Glee and Madrigal Club to perform though it should perish in the attempt. Growing excited, in his dry way, concerning the merits of this composition, he rose from his easy chair and went to search for it. Before doing so he looked at the clock, which indicated twenty minutes past nine.