In order to get into Mallards more speedily, Lucia left Grebe vacant in the space of two days, not forgetting the india-rubber felting in the passage outside the Office, for assuredly there would be another Temple of Silence at Mallards, and stored her furniture until her new house was fit to receive it. Grebe being thus empty, the vans from Mallards poured tiger-skins and Polynesian aprons into it, and into Mallards there poured a regiment of plumbers and painters and cleaners and decorators. Drains were tested, pointings between bricks renewed, floors scraped and ceilings whitewashed, and for the next fortnight other householders in Tilling had the greatest difficulty in getting any repairs done, for there was scarcely a workman who was not engaged on Mallards. Throughout these hectic weeks Lucia stayed with Georgie at the Cottage, and not even he had ever suspected the sheer horse-power of body and mind which she was capable of developing when really extended. She had breakfasted before the first of her workmen appeared in the morning, and was ready to direct and guide them and to cancel all the orders she had given the day before, till everyone was feverishly occupied, and then she went back to the Cottage to read the letters that had come for her by the first post and skim the morning papers for world-movements.
