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Harding showed what can only be described as apprehension where the charlady was concerned. It was as though he had been called upon to enjoy the antics of a demented person. He would join Essie in explosions of mirth, sometimes in spite of himself, but on the whole he was uneasy.

If Mrs. Harradson was a source of cheap amusement for Hester, she had been born, as it were, with the house in which they lived: the House that Jack Built, as René called it. She was as if she had been one of its bricks, cemented into it. And if she was absurd, so was the house and its cast. Essie watched it, mainly through the rapportage of Mrs. Harradson, through which medium its events were magnified and distorted. Her husband, too, was entertained by the continuation of Mrs. Harradson, namely the house. But, as with her, this building, so replete with absurdity, produced in him a malaise, which he endeavoured to conceal, although he would say to Essie, 'Is it not unusually absurd? Or is it just the average human mean? What do you think?' But she would answer, 'As you know, darling, the philosophy of the absurd is not in my line. But if you really want to know what I think. . . .'—'Yes? You mean that we are part of the house. That is the difficulty.'