 Prudence works, Rodney confesses, in the same Ministry as him and he had taken her out to dinner on two occasions.This prompts Wilmet to admit to previously unmentioned lunches with Rowena’s husband Harry and with Piers.Their stiff conversation then dissolves "into helpless laughter, so that an elderly woman, coming into the lounge to retrieve the knitting she had left there before dinner, retreated quickly and with a look of alarm on her face."