9Miss Maud Silver did not as a rule accept invitations to cocktail-parties, a modern innovation which in her opinion compared unfavourably with the now practically extinct tea-party or At Home. In pre-war days one sat at one’s ease and conversed with one’s friends. At a cocktail-party you were very lucky indeed if you got a chair, and it was quite impossible to converse, the competition in voices being such as to produce a roar resembling that of a cataract or the passing of a procession of tanks. Yet she had come down by tube to Grove Hill in order to attend one of these disagreeable functions. She would not have done it for just anyone, but Mrs Justice was an old friend and her daughter had once had reason to be grateful for Miss Silver’s professional help. She was now comfortably and ha
