lead and direct Riseholme instead of Lucia? She had long wondered why
darling Lucia should be Queen of Riseholme, and had, by momentary
illumination, seen herself thus equipped as far more capable of
exercising supremacy. After all, everybody in Riseholme knew Lucia's
old tune by now, and was in his secret consciousness quite aware that
she did not play the second and third movements of the Moonlight
Sonata, simply because they "went faster," however much she might cloak
the omission by saying that they resembled eleven o'clock in the
morning and 3 p.m. And Mrs Quantock had often suspected that she did
not read one quarter of the books she talked about, and that she got up
subjects in the Encyclopaedia, in order to make a brave show that
covered essential ignorance. Certainly she spent a good deal of money
over entertaining, but Robert had lately made twenty times daily what
Lucia spent annually, over Roumanian oils. As for her acting, had she
not completely forgotten her words as Lady Macbeth in the middle of the
sleep-walking scene?

But here was Lucia, as proved by her note, and her A. D. C. Georgie,
wildly interested in the Guru. Mrs Quantock conjectured that Lucia's
plan was to launch the Guru at her August parties, as her own
discovery. He would be a novelty, and it would be Lucia who gave
Om-parties and breathing-parties and standing-on-one-leg parties, while
she herself, Daisy Quantock, would be bidden to these as a humble
guest, and Lucia would get all the credit, and, as likely as not,
invite the discoverer, the inventress, just now and then. Mrs
Quantock's Guru would become Lucia's Guru and all Riseholme would flock
hungrily for light and leading to The Hurst. She had written to Lucia
in all sincerity, hoping that she would extend the hospitality of her
garden-parties to the Guru, but now the very warmth of Lucia's reply
caused her to suspect this ulterior motive. She had been too