Reta narrates her predicament in the first person, circling it doggedly, chattily, sometimes with a deliciously malicious wit, taking us inside her domestic routines, her .
Said he chattily: "I like to wrestle with chess problems.
The indomitable Viscountess, explaining chattily that she kept her stockings loose "so they wouldn't tear," stepped behind a desk, quickly pulled herself together, carried on.