newspapers, envelopes and bottles that littered the table;

coming at last to a large portfolio from which he took a

pencil drawing. The picture was of a girl's head. She

looked about twenty. The features, suggested rather than

outlined, made her seem uncertain of herself, perhaps on the

defensive. Her hair was untidy. There was an air of self-

conscious rebellion. Something about the portrait struck me

as familiar.

@'What is her name?'

@'I don't know.'

@'Why not?'

@'She won't tell me.'

@'How very secretive.'

@'That's what I think.'

@'How often has she been here?'

@'Two or three times.'

@I examined the drawing again.

@'I've met her.'

@'Who is she?'

@'I'm trying to remember.'

@'Have a good think,' said Barnby, sighing. 'I like to clear

these matters up.'

@But for the moment I was unable to recall the girl's name.

I had the impression our acquaintance had been slight, and

was of a year or two earlier. There had been something

absurd, or laughable, in the background of the occasion

when we had met.

@'It would bc only polite to reveal her identity by now,'

Barnby said, returning the drawing to the portfolio and

making a grimace.

@'How did it start?'

@'I was coming back from a week-end with the Manaschs'.

She arrived in the compartment about an hour before we

reached London. We began to talk about films. For some

reason we got on to the French Revolution. She said she

was on the side of the People.'

@'Dark eyes and reddish hair?'

@'The latter unbrushed.'

@'Christian name, Anne?'

@'There was certainly an 'A' on her handkerchief. That

was a clue I forgot to tell you.'

@'Generally untidy?'

@'Decidedly. As to baths, I shouldn't think she overdid

them.'

@'I think I can place her.'

@Don't keep me in suspense.'

@'Lady Anne Stepney.'

@'A friend of yours?'

@'I sat next to her once at dinner years ago. She made the

same remark about the French Revolution.'

@'Did she, indeed,' said Barnby, perhaps a shade piqued at

this apparently correct guess. 'Did you follow up those

liberal convictions at the time?'

@'On the contrary. I doubt if she would even remember

my name. Her sister married Charles Stringham, whom

I've sometimes talked of. They are getting a divorce, so I

saw in the paper.'

@'Oh, yes,' said Barnby. 'I read about it too. Stringham

was the Great Industrialist's secretary at one moment,

wasn't he?  I met him with Baby and liked him. He has

that very decorative mother, Mrs. Foxe, whom really I

wouldn't--'

@He became silent; then returned to the subject of the

girl.

@'Her parents are called Bridgnorth?'

@'That's it.'

@'One starts these things,' Barnby said, 'and then the ques-

tion arises: how is one to continue them?  Before you know

where you are, you are thoroughly entangled. That is what

we all have to remember.'

@'We do, indeed.'

@Lying in bed in the Templers' house, feeling more than

a little unwilling to rise into a chilly world, I thought of

thcse words of Barnby's. There could be no doubt that I

was now, as he had said, 'thoroughly entangled'.

@Everyone came down late to breakfast that morning.

Mona was in a decidedly bad temper. Her irritation was

perhaps due to an inner awareness that a love affair was in

the air, thc precise location of which she was unable to

identify; for I was fairly certain that neither of the

Templers guessed anything was 'on' between Jean and my-

self. They seemed, indeed, fully occupied by the discord

of their own relationship. As it happened, I found no

opportunity to be alone with Jean. She seemed almost

deliberately to arrange that we should always be chaperoned

by one of the other two. She would once more have

appeared as calm, distant, unknown to me, as when first

seen, had she not twice smiled submissively, almost shyly,

when our eyes met.

@Mona's sulkiness cast a gloom over the house. Although

obviously lazy and easy-going in her manner 'of life, she

possessed also an energy and egotism that put considerable

force behind this display of moodiness. Templer made

more than one effort to cheer her up, from time to time

becoming annoyed himself at his lack of success; when

conciliation would suddenly turn to teasing. However, his

continued attempts to fall in with his wife's whims led in

due course to an unexpected development in the com-

position of the party.

@We were sitting in a large room of nebulous character,

where most of the life of the household was carried on,

reading the Sunday papers, talking, and playing the gramo-

phone. The previous night's encounter with Quiggin had

enflamed Mona's memories of her career as an artist's

model. She began to talk of the 'times' she had had in

various studios, and to question me about Mark Members;

perhaps regretting that she had allowed this link with her

past to be severed so entirely.  Professionally, she had never

come across such figures as Augustus John, or Epstein,

trafficking chiefly with a group of the lesser academic

painters; though she had known a few young men, like

Members and Barnby, who frequented more 'advanced'

circles. She had never even sat for Isbister, so she told me.

All the same, that period of her life was now sufficiently

far away to be clouded with romance; at least when

compared in her own mind with her married circum-

stances.

@When I agreed that both Members and Quiggin were by

then, in their different ways, quite well-known 'young

writers', she became more than ever enthusiastic about

them, insisting that she must meet Quiggin again. In fact

conversation seemed to have been deliberately steered by

her into these channels with that end in view. Templer,

lying in an armchair with his legs stretched out in front of

him, listened indifferently to her talk while he idly turned

the pages of the <2News of the World.>2  His wife's experiences

among 'artists' probably cropped up fairly often as a subject:

a regular, almost legitimate method of exciting a little

domestic jealousy when life at home seemed flat. Her re-

peated questions at last caused me to explain the change of

secretary made by St. John Clarke.

@'But this is all <2too>2 thrilling,' she said. 'I told you St. John

Clarke was my favourite author. Can't we get Mr. Quiggin

to lunch and ask him what really <2has>2 happened?'

@'Well--'

@'Look, Pete,' she exclaimed noisily. <2'Do>2 let's ask J. G.

Quiggin to lunch today. He could get a train. Nick would

ring him up--you will, won-t you, darling?'

@Templer threw the <2News of the World>2 on to the carpet,

and, turning towards me, raised his eyebrows and nodded

his head slowly up and down to indicate the fantastic

lengths to which caprice could be carried by a woman.

@'But would Mr. Quiggin want to come?' he asked,

imitating Mona's declamatory tone. 'Wouldn't he want to

finish writing one of his brilliant articles?'

@'We could try.'

@'By all means, if you like. Half-past eleven on the day

of the luncheon invitation is considered a bit late in the

best circles, but fortunately we do not move in the best

circles. I suppose there will be enough to eat. You

remember Jimmy is bringing a girl friend?'

@'Jimmy doesn't matter.'

@'I agree.'

@'What do you think, Nick?' she asked. 'Would Quiggin

come?'

@One of the charms of staying with the Templers had

seemed the promise of brief escape from that routine of

the literary world so relentlessly implied by the mere

thought of Quiggin. It was the world in which I was

thoroughly at home, and certainly did not wish to change

for another, only for once to enjoy a week-end away from

it. However, to prevent the Templers from asking Quiggin

to lunch if they so desired was scarcely justifiable to any-

one concerned. Besides, I was myself curious to hear further

details regarding St. John Clarke; although I should have

preferred by then to have heard Members's side of the story.

Apart from all that--indeed quite overriding such con-

siderations--were my own violent feelings about Jean which

had to be reduced inwardly to some manageable order.

@'Who is 'Jimmy'?' I asked.

@'Surely you remember Jimmy Stripling when you stayed

with us years ago?' said Templer. 'My brother-in-law. At

least he was until Babs divorced him. Somehow I've never

been able to get him out of my life. Babs can demand her

freedom and go her own way. For me there is no legal

redress. Jimmy hangs round my neck like a millstone. I

can't even get an annulment.'

@'Didn't he go in for motor racing?'

@'That's the chap.'

@'Who disliked Sunny Farebrother so much?'

@'Hated his guts. Well, Jimmy is coming to lunch today

and bringing some sort of a piece with him--he asked if

he could. Not too young, I gather, so your eyes need not

brighten up. I can't remember her name.. I could not

refuse for old times' sake, though he is a terrible bore is

poor old Jimmy these days. He had a spill at Brooklands a

year or two ago.  Being shot out of his car arse-first seems

to have affected his brain in some way--though you

wouldn't think there was much there to affect.'

@'What does he do?'

@'An underwriter at Lloyd's. It is not his business capacity

so much as his private life that has seized up. He still rakes

in a certain amount of dough. But he has taken up

astrology and theosophy and numerology and God knows

what else. Could your friend Quiggin stand that? Prob-

ably love it, wouldn't he? The more the merrier so far

as I'm concerned.'

@'Quiggin would eat it up.'

@<2'Do>2 ring him, then,' said Mona.

@'Shall I?'

@'Go ahead,' said Templer.  'The telephone is next door.'

There was no reply from Quiggin's Bloomsbury flat, so

I rang St. John Clarke's number; on the principle that if a

thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. The bell

buzzed for some seconds, and then Quiggin's voice sounded,

gratingly, at the other end of the line. As I had supposed,

he was already engaged on his new duties. At first he was

very suspicious of my seeking him out at that place. These

suspicions were not allayed when I explained about the

invitation to lunch with the Templers.

@'But <2today?'>2 he said, irritably. 'Lunch today?  Why, it's

nearly lunch-time already.'

@I repeated to him Mona's apologies for the undoubted

lateness of the invitation.

@'But I don't know them,' said Quiggin. 'Are they very

rich?'

@He still sounded cross, although a certain interest was

aroused in him. I referred again to his earlier meeting with

Mona.

@'So she remembered me at Deacon's party after all?' he

asked, rather more hopefully this time.

@'She has talked of nothing but that evening.'

@'I don't think I ought to leave St. J.'

@'Is he bad?'

@'Better, as a matter of fact. But there ought to be someone

responsible here.'

@'Couldn't you get Mark?' I asked, to tease him.

@'St. J. does not want to see Mark just at the moment,'

said Quiggin, in his flattest voice, ignoring any jocular

implications the question might have possessed. 'But I sup-

pose there is really no reason why the maid should not look

after him perfectly well if I went out for a few hours.'

@This sounded like weakening.

@'You could catch the train if you started now.'

@He was silent for a moment, evidently anxious to accept,

but at the same time trying to find some excuse for making

himself so easily available.

@'Mona reads your articles.'

@'She does?'

@'Always quoting them.'

@'Intelligently?'

@'Come and judge for yourself.'

@'Should I like their house?'

@'You'll have the time of your life.'

@'I think I will,' he said. 'Of course I shall be met at

the station?'

@'Of course.'

@'All right, then.'

@He replaced the receiver with a bang, as if closing an

acrimonious interchange. I returned to the drawing-room.

Templer was sprawling on the sofa, apparently not much

interested whether Quiggin turned up or not.

@'He's coming,'

@'Is he <2really?'>2 said Mona, shrilly. 'How <2wonderful.'>2

@'Mona gets a bit bored with my friends,' said Templer.

'I must say I don't blame her. Now you can sample some-

thing of another kind at lunch, sweetie.'

@'Well, we never see anybody <2interesting,>2 sweetie,' said

Mona, putting on a stage pout. 'He'll at least remind me

of the days when I <2used>2 to meet intelligent people.'

@'Intelligent people?' said Templer. 'Come, come, darling,

you aren't being very polite to Nick. He regards himself as

tremendously intelligent.'

@'Then we are providing some intelligent company for

him,' said Mona. 'Your ex-brother-in-law isn't likely to

come out with anything very sparkling in the way of con-

versation--unless he has changed a lot since we went with

him to Wimbledon.'

@'What do you expect at Wimbledon?' said Templer. 'To

sit in the centre court listening to a flow of epigrams about

foot-faults and forehand drives? Still, I see what you mean.'

@I remembered Jimmy Stripling chiefly on account of

various practical jokes in which he had been concerned

when, as a boy, I had stayed with the Templers. In this

horseplay he had usually had the worst of it. He remained

in my memory as a big, gruff, bad-tempered fellow, full of

guilty feelings about having taken no part in the war.  I had

not much cared for him. I wondered how he would get on

with Quiggin, who could be crushing to people he disliked.

However, one of the traits possessed by Quiggin in common

with his new employer was a willingness to go almost any-

where where a free meal was on offer; and this realistic

approach to social life implied, inevitably, if not toleration

of other people, at least a certain rough and ready tech-

nique for dealing with all sorts. I could not imagine why

Mona was so anxious to see Quiggin again. At that time I

failed entirely to grasp the extent to which in her eyes

Quiggin represented high romance.

@'What happened to Babs when she parted from Jimmy

Stripling?'

@'Married a lord,' said Templer. 'The family is going up

in the world. But I expect she still thinks about Jimmy.

After all, you couldn't easily forget a man with breath

like his.'

@Some interruption changed the subject before I was able

to ask the name of Babs's third husband. Mona went to

tell the servants that there would be an additional guest.

Templer followed her to look for more cigarettes. For a

moment Jean and I were left alone together. I slipped my

hand under her arm.  She pressed down upon it, giving me

a sense of being infinitely near to her; an assurance that

all would be well.  There is always a real and an imaginary

person you are in love with; 'sometimes you love one best,

sometimes the other. At that moment it was the real one I

loved. We had scarcely time to separate and begin a formal

conversation when Mona returned to the room.

@There the four of us remained until the sound came of a

car churning up snow before the front door. This was

Quiggin's arrival. Being, in a way, so largely responsible

for his presence at the Templers' house, I was relieved

to observe, when he entered the room, that he had cleaned

himself up a bit since the previous evening. Now he was

wearing a suit of cruelly blue cloth and a green knitted

tie. From the start it was evident that he intended to make

himself agreeable. His sharp little eyes darted round the

walls, taking in the character of his hosts and their house.

@'I see you have an Isbister in the hall,' he said, dryly.

@The harsh inflexion of his voice made it possible to accept

this comment as a compliment, or, alternatively, a shared

joke. Templer at once took the words in the latter sense.

@'Couldn't get rid of it,' he said. 'I suppose you don't

know anybody who would make an offer?  An upset price,

of course. Now's the moment.'

@'I'll look about,' said Quiggin. 'Isbister was a typical artist-

business man produced by a decaying society, don't you

think? As a matter of fact Nicholas and I have got to have

a talk about Isbister in the near future.'

@He grinned at me. I hoped he was not going to raise the

whole question of St. John Clarke's introduction there and

then. His tone might have meant anything or nothing, so far

as his offer of help was concerned. Perhaps he really intended

to suggest that he would try to sell the picture for Templer;

and get a rake-off. His eyes continued to stray over the very

indifferent nineteenth-century seascapes that covered the

walls; hung together in patches as if put up hurriedly when

the place was first occupied. No doubt that was exactly

what had happened to them. In the Templers' house by the

sea they had hung in the dining-room. Before the Isbister

could be discussed further, the two other guests arrived.

@The first through the door was a tall, rather overpower-

ing lady, followed closely by Jimmy Stripling himseIf, look-

ing much older than I had remembered him. The smooth-

ness of the woman's movements, as she advanced towards

Mona, almost suggested that Stripling was propelling her

in front of him like an automaton on castors. I knew at

once that I had seen her before, but could not at first recall

the occasion: one so different, as it turned out, from that of

the moment.

@'How are you, Jimmy?' said Templer.

@Stripling took the woman by the arm.

@'This is Mrs. Erdleigh,' he said, in a rather strangled

voice. 'I have told you so much about her, you know, and

here she is.'

@Mrs. Erdleigh shook hands graciously all round, much as

if she were a visiting royalty. When she came to me, she

took my hand in hers and smiled indulgently.

@'You see I was right,' she said. 'You did not believe me,

did you? It is just a year.'

@Once more, suffocating waves of musk-like scent were dis-

tilled by her presence. By then, as a matter of fact, a month

or two must have passed beyond the year that she had fore-

told would precede our next meeting. All the same, it was a

respectable piece of prognostication. I thought it wiser to

leave Uncle Giles unmentioned. If she wished to speak of

him, she could always raise the subject herself. I reflected,

at the same time, how often this exterior aspect of Uncle

Giles's personality must have remained 'unmentioned'

throughout his life; especially where his relations were con-

cerned.

@However, Mrs. Erdleigh gave the impression of knowing

very well what was advisable to 'mention' and what in'

advisable. She looked well; younger, if anything, than

when I had seen her at the Ufford, and smartly dressed in

a style that suggested less than before her inexorably

apocalyptic role in life. In fact, her clothes of that former

occasion seemed now, in contrast, garments of a semi-

professional kind; vestments, as it were, appropriate to the

ritual of her vocation. With Stripling under her control--

as he certainly was--she could no doubt allow herself

frivolously to enjoy the fashion of the moment.

@Stripling himself, on the other hand, had changed notice-

ably for the worse in the ten years or more gone since

our former meeting. His bulk still gave the impression that

he was taking up more than his fair share of the room, but

the body, although big, seemcd at the same time shrivelled.

His hair, still parted in the middle, was grey and grizzled.

Although at that time still perhaps under forty, he looked

prematurely old. There was an odd, disconnected stare in

his eyes, which started from his head when he spoke at all

emphatically. He appeared to be thoroughly under the

thumb of Mrs. Erdleigh, whose manner, kindly though

firm, implied supervision of a person not wholly responsible

for his own actions. Later, it was noticeable how fixedly

he watched her, while in conversation he inclined to refer

even the most minor matters to her arbitration. In spite of

his cowed air, he was far more friendly than when we

had met before, an occasion he assured me he remembered

perfectly.

@'We had a lot of fun that summer with my old pal,

Sunny Farebrother, didn't we?' he said in a melancholy

voice.

@He spoke as if appealing for agreement that the days

when fun could be had with Sunny Farebrother, or indeed

with anyone else, were now long past.

@'Do you remember how we were going to put a po in

his hat-box or something?' he went on. 'How we all

laughed. Good old Sunny. I never seem to see the old

boy now, though I hear he's making quite a bit of money.

It's just the same with so many folks one used to know.

They pass by on the other side or join the Great Majority.'

@His face had lighted up when, upon entering the room,

he had seen Jean, and he had taken both her hands in his

and kissed her enthusiastically. She did not seem to regard

this act as anything out of the way, nor even specially

repugnant to her. I felt a twinge of annoyance at that kiss.

I should have liked no one else to kiss her for at least

twenty-four hours. However, I reminded myself that such

familiarity was reasonable enough in an ex-brother-in-law;

in fact, if it came to that, reasonable enough in any old

friend; though for that reason no more tolerable to myself.

Stripling also held Jean's arm for a few seconds, but,

perhaps aware of Mrs. Erdleigh's eye upon him, removed

his hand abruptly. Fumbling in his pocket, he produced a

long gold cigarette-case and began to fill it from a packet of

Players. Although physically dilapidated, he still gave the

impression of being rich. The fact that his tweeds were

crumpled and the cuffs of his shirt greasy somehow added

to this impression of wealth. If there had been any doubt

about Stripling's money, his satisfactory financial position

could have been estimated from Quiggin's manner towards

him, a test like litmus paper where affluence was concerned.

Quiggin was evidently anxious--as I was myself--to learn

more of this strange couple.

@'How's the world, Jimmy?' said Templer, clapping his

former brother-in-law on the back, and catching my eye as

he handed him an unusually stiff drink.

@'Well,' said Stripling, speaking slowly, as if Templer's

enquiry deserved very serious consideration before an

answer was made, 'well, I don't think the <2World>2 will get

much better as long as it clings to material values.'

@At this Quiggin laughed in a more aggressive man-

ner than he had adopted hitherto. He was evidently

trying to decide whether it would be better to be in-

gratiating to Stripling or to attack him; either method could

be advantageous from its respective point of view.

@<2'I>2 think material values are just what want reassessing,'

Quiggin said. 'Nor do I see how we can avoid clinging to

them, since they are the only values that truly exist. How-

ever, they might be linked with a little social justice for a

change.'

@Stripling disregarded this remark, chiefly, I think, because

his mind was engrossed with preoccupations so utterly

different that he had not the slightest idea what Quiggin

was talking about. Templer's eyes began to brighten as

he realised that elements were present that promised an

enjoyable clash of opinions. Luncheon was announced.

We passed into the dining-room. As I sat down at the table

I saw Mrs. Erdleigh's forefinger touch Mona's hand.

@'As soon as I set eyes on you, my dear,' she said, gently,

'I knew that you belonged to the Solstice of Summer. When

<2is>2 your birthday?'

@As usual, her misty gaze seemed to envelop completely

whomsoever she addressed. There could be no doubt that

her personality had immediately delighted Mona, who had

by then already lost all her earlier sulkiness. Indeed, as

the meal proceeded, Mrs. Erdleigh showed herself to be just

what Mona had required. She provided limitlessly a kind of

conversational balm at once maternal and sacerdotal. The

two of them settled down to a detailed discussion across the

table of horoscopes and their true relation to peculiarities

of character. I was for some reason reminded of Sillery

dealing with some farouche undergraduate whom he

wished especially to enclose within his net. Even Mona's

so recently excited interest in Quiggin was forgotten in

this torrent of astrological self-examination, systematically

controlled, in spite of its urgency of expression, by such a

sympathetic informant. Mona seemed now entirely

absorbed in Mrs. Erdleigh, whose manner, vigorous, calm,

mystical, certainly dominated the luncheon table.

@The meal passed off, therefore, with more success than

might have been expected from such oddly assorted com-

pany. I reflected, not for the first time, how mistaken it

is to suppose there exists some 'ordinary' world into which

it is possible at will to wander. All human beings, driven

as they are at different speeds by the same Furies, are at

close range equally extraordinary. This party's singular

composition was undoubtedly enhanced by the common-

place nature of its surroundings. At the same time it was

evident that the Templers themselves saw nothing in the

least out-of-the-way about the guests collectcd round their

table for Sunday luncheon; except possibly the fact that

both Quiggin and I were professionally connectcd with

books.

@If Quiggin disapproved--and he did undoubtedly dis-

approve--of the turn taken by Mona's and Mrs. Erdleigh's

talk, he made at first no effort to indicate his dissatisfaction.

He was in possession of no clue to the fact that he had

been arbitrarily deposed from the position of most

honoured guest in the house that day. In any case, as a

person who himself acted rarely if ever from frivolous or

disinterested motives, he would have found it hard, perhaps

impossible, to understand the sheer irresponsibility of his

invitation. To have been asked simply and solely on

account of Mona's whim, if he believed that to be the

reason, must have been in itself undeniably flattering to his

vanity; but, as Mr. Deacon used sadly to remark, 'those who

enjoy the delights of caprice must also accustom themselves

to bear caprice's lash'. Even if Quiggin were aware of this

harsh law's operation, he had no means of appreciating the

ruthless manner in which it had been put into execution

that afternoon. Mona's wish to see him had been emphasised

by me when I had spoken with him on the telephone. If

she continued to ignore him, Quiggin would logically

assume that for one reason or another either Templer, or I

myself, must have desired his presence. He would suspect

some ulterior motive as soon as he began to feel sceptical as

to Mona's interest in him being the cause of his invitation.

As the meal progressed, this lack of attention on her part

undoubtedly renewed earlier suspicions. By the time we

were drinking coffee he was already showing signs of

becoming less amenable.

@I think this quite fortuitous situation brought about

by the presence of Mrs. Erdleigh was not without effect

on Quiggin's future behaviour towards Mona herself. If

Mrs. Erdleigh had not been at the table he would un-

doubtedly have received the full force of his hostess's

admiration. This would naturally have flattered him, but

his shrewdness would probably also have assessed her defer-

ence as something fairly superficial. As matters turned out,

apparent disregard for him keenly renewed his own

former interest in her. Perhaps Quiggin thought she was

deliberately hiding her true feelings at luncheon. Perhaps

he was right in thinking that. With a woman it is im-

possible to say.

@In the early stages of the meal Quiggin had been per-

fectly agreeable, talking to Jean of changes taking place in

contemporary poetry, and of the personalities involved in

these much advertised literary experiments. He explained

that he considered the work of Mark Members commend-

able, if more than a trifle old-fashioned.

@'Mark has developed smoothly from beginnings legiti-

mately influenced by Browning, paused perhaps too long

in byways frequented by the Symbolists, and reached in

his own good time a categorically individual style and

phraseology. Unfortunately his <2%oeuvre>2 is at present lacking

in any real sense of social significance.'

@He glanced at Mona after saying this, perhaps hoping

that a former friend of Gypsy Jones might notice the

political implications of his words. However he failed to

catch her attention, and turned almost immediately to

lighter matters, evidently surprising even Templer by

sagacious remarks regarding restaurant prices in the South

of France, and an unexpected familiarity with the <2Barrio>2

<2chino>2 quarter in Barcelona. However, in spite of this con-

versational versatility, I was aware that Quiggin was in-

wardly turning sour. This could be seen from time to time

in his face, especially in the glances of dislike he was begin,

ning to cast in the direction of Stripling. He had probably

decided that, rich though Stripling might be, he was not

worth cultivating.

@Stripling, for his part, did not talk much; when he spoke

chiefly addressing himself to Jean. He had shown--perhaps

not surprisingly--no interest whatever in Quiggin's admir-

ably lucid exposition of the New School's poetic diction,

in which Communist convictions were expressed in un-

expected metre and rhyme. On the other hand Stripling

did sometimes rouse himself in an attempt to break into

the stream of astrological chatter that bubbled between

Mrs. Erdleigh and Mona. His mind seemed to wander

perpetually through the mystic territories of clairvoyance,

a world of the spirit no doubt incarnate to him in Mrs.

Erdleigh herself. Although this appearance of permanent

preoccupation, coupled with his peculiar, jerky manner,

conveyed the impression that he might not be quite sane,

Templer seemed to attach more importance to Stripling's

City gossip than his father had ever done. Mr. Templer, I

remembered, had been very curt with his son-in-law when

financial matters were in question.

@All the while I felt horribly bored with the whole lot of

them, longing to be alone once more with Jean, and yet

also in some odd manner almost dreading the moment

when that time should come; one of those mixed sensations

so characteristic of intense emotional excitement. There is

always an element of unreality, perhaps even of slight

absurdity, about someone you love. It seemed to me that

she was sitting in an awkward, almost melodramatic

manner, half-turned towards Quiggin, while she crumbled

her bread with fingers long and subtly shaped. I seemed to

be looking at a picture of her, yet felt that I could easily

lose control of my senses, and take her, then and there, in

my arms.

@'But in these days you can't believe in such things as

astrology,' said Quiggin. 'Why, even apart from other con-

siderations, the very astronomical discoveries made since

the time of the ancients have negatived what was once

thought about the stars.'

@We had returned to the drawing-room. Already it was

obvious that the afternoon must be spent indoors. The

leaden, sunless sky, from which sleet was now falling with

a clatter on to the frozen snow of the lawn, created in the

house an atmosphere at once gloomy and sinister: a climate

in itself hinting of necromancy. The electric light had to be

turned on, just as if we were sitting in the lounge of the

Ufford. The heavy claret drunk at luncheon prompted a

desire to lie at full length on the sofa, or at least to sit

well back and stretch out the legs and yawn. For a second

--soft and exciting and withdrawn immediately--I felt

Jean's hand next to mine on the cushion. Quiggin lurked

in the corners of the room, pretending to continue his ex-

amination of the pictures, his silence scarcely concealing the

restlessness that had overtaken him. From time to time he

shot out a remark, more or less barbed. He must by then

have tumbled to the implications of his own status at the

party. Nettled at Mrs. Erdleigh's capture of Mona, he

was probably planning how best to express his irritation

openly.
'Oh, but I <2do,'>2 said Mona, drawling out the words. 'I

think those occult things are almost always right. They

are in my case, I <2know.'>2

@'Yes, yes,' said Quiggin, brushing aside this affirmation

with a tolerant grin, as the mere fancy of a pretty girl, and

at the same time addressing himself more directly to Strip-

ling, at whom his first attack had certainly been aimed,

'but <2you>2 can't believe all that--a hard-headed business man

like yourself?'

@'That's just it,' said Stripling, ignoring, in fact probably

not noticing, the sneering, disagreeable tone of Quiggin's

voice. 'It's just the fact that I <2am>2 occupied all day long

with material things that makes me realise they are not the

whole of life.'

@However, his eyes began to start from his head, so that

he was perhaps becoming aware that Quiggin was deliber-

ately teasing him. No doubt he was used to encountering a

certain amount of dissent from his views, though opposi-

tion was probably not voiced as usual in so direct and

dialectical a manner as this. Quiggin continued to smile

derisively.

@'You certainly find in me no champion of the City's

methods,' he said. 'But at least what you call 'material

things' represent reality.'

@'Hardly at all.'

@'Oh, come.'

@'Money is a delusion.'

@'Not if you haven't got any.'

@'That is just when you realise most money's unreality.'

@'Why not get rid of yours, then?'

@'I might any day.'

@'Let me know when you decide to.'

@'You must understand the thread that runs through life,'

said Stripling, now speaking rather wildly, and looking

stranger than ever. 'It does not matter that there may be

impurities and errors in one man's method of seeking the

Way. What matters is that he <2is>2 seeking it--and knows

there is a Way to be found.'

@'Commencement--Opposition--Equilibrium,' said Mrs.

Erdleigh in her softest voice, as if to offer Stripling some

well-earned moral support. 'You can't get away from it--

Thesis--Antithesis--Synthesis.'

@'That's just what I mean,' said Stripling, as if her words

brought him instant relief. 'Brahma--Vishnu--Siva.'

@'It all sounded quite Hegelian until you brought in the

Indian gods,' said Quiggin angrily.

@He would no doubt have continued to argue had not

a new element been introduced at this moment by Jean: an

object that became immediately the focus of attention.

@While this discussion had been in progress she had

slipped from the room. I had been wondering how I could

myself quietly escape from the others and look for her,

when she returned carrying in her hand what first appeared

to be a small wooden palette for oil paints. Two castors,

or wheels, were attached to this heart-shaped board, the far

end of which was transfixed with a lead pencil. I recalled

the occasion when Sunny Farebrother had ruined so many

of Stripling's starched collars in a patent device in which

he had a business interest, and I wondered whether this

was something of a similar kind. However, Mrs. Erdleigh

immediately recognised the significance of the toy and

began to laugh a little reprovingly.

@'Planchette?' she said. 'You know, I really rather dis-

approve. I do not think Good Influences make themselves

known through Planchette as a rule. And the things it

writes cause such a lot of bad feeling sometimes.'

@'It really belongs to Baby,' said Jean. 'She heard of it

somewhere and made Sir Magnus Donners get her one.

She brought it round to us once when she was feeling

depressed about some young man of hers. We couldn't

make it work. She forgot to take it away and I have been

carrying it round--meaning to give it back to her-ever

since.'

@Stripling's eyes lit up and began once more to dilate.

@'Shall we do it?' he asked, in a voice that shook slightly.

'Do let's.'

@'Well,' said Mrs. Erdleigh, speaking kindly, as if to a

child who has proposed a game inevitably associated with

the breakage of china, 'I <2know>2 trouble will come of it if

we do.'

@'But for once,' begged Stripling. 'Don't you think for

once, Myra? It's such a rotten afternoon.'

@'Then don't complain afterwards that I did not warn

you.'

@Although I had often heard of Planchette, I had never,

as it happened, seen the board in operation; and I felt some

curiosity myself to discover whether its writings would

indeed set down some of the surprising disclosures occasion-

ally described by persons in the habit of playing with it.

The very name was new to both the Templers. Stripling

explained that the machine was placed above a piece of

blank paper, upon which the pencil wrote words, when

two or three persons lightly rested their fingers upon the

wooden surface: castors and pencil point moving without

deliberate agency. Stripling was obviously delighted to be

allowed for once to indulge in this forbidden practice, in

spite of Mrs. Erdleigh's tempered disparagement. Whether

her disapproval was really deep-seated, or due merely to a

conviction that the game was unwise in that particular

company, could only be guessed.

@Quiggin was plainly annoyed; even rather insulted, at

this step taken towards an actual physical attempt to invoke

occult forces.

@'I thought such things had been forgotten since the court

of Napoleon III,' he said. 'You don't really believe it will

write anything, do you?'

@'You may be surprised by the knowledge it displays of

your own life, old chap,' said Stripling, with an effort to

recover the breeziness of earlier days.

@'Obviously--when someone is rigging it.'

@'It's hardly possible to rig it, old chap.  You try and write

something, just using the board by yourself. You'll find it

damned difficult.'

@Quiggin gave an annoyed laugh. Some sheets of foolscap,

blue and ruled with red lines for keeping accounts, were

found in a drawer. One of these large sheets of paper was

set out upon a table. The experiment began with Mona,

Stripling and Mrs. Erdleigh as executants, the last of

whom, having once registered her protest, showed no un-

graciousness in her manner of joining the proceedings, if

they were fated to take place. Templer obviously felt com-

plete scepticism regarding the whole matter, which he could

not be induced to take seriously even to the extent of

agreeing to participate. Quiggin, too, refused to join in,

though he showed an almost fevcrish interest in what was

going forward.

@Naturally, Quiggin was delighted when, after a trial of

several minutes, no results whatever were achieved. Then

the rest of us, in various combinations of persons, attempted

to work the board. All these efforts were unsuccessful.

Sometimes the pencil shot violently across the surface of the

paper, covering sheet after sheet, as a new surface was

substituted, with dashes and scribbles. More often, it would

not move at all.

@'You none of you seem to be getting very far,' said

Templer.

@'It may be waste of time,' said Mrs. Erdleigh. 'Planchette

can be very capricious. Perhaps there is an unsympathetic

presence in the room.'

@'I should not be at all surprised,' said Quiggin, speaking

with elaborately satirical emphasis.

@He stood with his heels on the fender, his hands in his

pockets--rather in the position Le Bas used to adopt when

giving a lecture on wiping your boots before coming into

the house--very well pleased with the course things were

taking.

@'I think you are horrid,' said Mona.

@She made a face at him; in itself a sign of a certain

renewed interest.

@'I don't think you ought to believe in such things,' said

Quiggin, nasally.

@'But I <2do.'>2

@She smiled encouragingly. She had probably begun to

feel that occult phenomena, at least by its absence, was

proving itself a bore; and that perhaps she might find

more fun in returning to her original project of exploring

Quiggin's own possibilities. However, this exchange

between them was immediately followed by sudden

development among the group resting their fingers on the

board. Jean and Mona had been trying their luck with

Stripling as third partner. Jean now rose from the table,

and, dropping one of those glances at once affectionate

and enquiring that raised such a storm within me, she said:

'You have a go.'

@I took the chair and placed my fingers lightly where hers

had been. Previously, when I had formed a trio with Mrs.

@93

Erdleigh and Mona--who had insisted on being party to

every session--nothing of note had happened. Now, almost

at once, Planchette began to move in a slow, regular motion.

@At first, from the 'feel' of the movement, I thought

Stripling must be manipulating the board deliberately. A

glassy look had come into his eye and his loose, rather

brutal mouth sagged open. Then the regular, up-and-down

rhythm came abruptly to an end. The pencil, as if im-

patient of all of us, shot off the paper on to the polished

wood of the table. A sentence had been written. It was

inverted from where Stripling was sitting. In fact the only

person who could reasonably be accused of having written

the words was myself. The script was long and sloping,

Victorian in character. Mrs. Erdleigh took a step forward

and read it aloud:

@<2'Karl is not pleased.'>2

@There was great excitement at this. Everyone crowded

round our chairs.

@'You must ask who "Karl" is,' said Mrs. Erdleigh, smiling.

@She was the only one who remained quite unmoved by

this sudden manifestation. Such things no longer surprised

her. Quiggin, on the other hand, moved quickly round to

my side of the table. He seemed divided between a wish

to accuse me of having written these words as a hoax, and

at the same time an unwillingness to make the admission,

obviously necessary in the circumstances, that any such

deception must have required quite exceptional manipu-

lative agility. In the end he said nothing, but stood there

frowning hard at me.

@'Is it Karl speaking?' asked Stripling, in a respectful,

indeed reverential voice.

@We replaced our hands on the board.

@<2'Who else,'>2 wrote Planchette.

@'Shall we continue?'

@<2'Antwortet er immer.'>2

@'Is that German?' said Stripling.

@'What does it mean, Pete?' Mona called out shrilly.

@Templer looked a little surprised at this.

@'Isn't it: "He always answers"?' he said. 'My German is

strictly commercial--not intended for communication with

the Next World.'

@'Have you a message? Please write in English if you

do not mind.'

@Stripling's voice again trembled a little when he said this.

@<2'Nothing to the Left.'>2

@This was decidedly enigmatic.

@'Does he mean we should move the coffee tray?' Mona

almost shouted, now thoroughly excited. 'He doesn't say

whose left. Perhaps we should clear the whole table.'

@Quiggin took a step nearer.

@'Which of you is faking this?' he said roughly. 'I believe

it is you, Nick.'

@He was grinning hard, but I could see that he was

extremely irritated. I pointed out that I could not claim to

write neat Victorian calligraphy sideways, and also upside-

down, at considerable speed: especially when unable to see

the paper written upon.

@'You must know "Nothing to the Left" is a quotation,'

Quiggin insisted.

@'Who said it?'

@'You got a degree in history, didn't you?'

@'I must have missed out that bit.'

@'Robespierre, of course,' said Quiggin, with great con-

tempt. 'He was speaking politically. Does no one in this

country take politics seriously?'

@I could not understand why he had become quite so

angry.

@'Let's get on with it,' said Templer, now at last beginning

to show some interest. 'Perhaps he'll make himself clearer

if pressed.'

@'This is <2too>2 exciting,' said Mona.

@She clasped her hands together. We tried again.

@<2'Wives in common.'>2

@This was an uncomfortable remark. It was impossible

to guess what the instrument might write next. However,

everyone was far too engrossed to notice whether the

comment had brought embarrassment to any individual

present.

@'Look here--' began Quiggin.

@Before he could complete the sentence, the board began

once more to race beneath our fingers.

@<2'Force is the midwife.'>2

@'I hope he isn't going to get too obstetric,' said Templer.

@Quiggin turned once more towards me. He was definitely

in a rage.

@'You must know where these phrases come from,' he

said. 'You can't be as ignorant as that.'

@'Search me.'

@'You are trying to be funny.'

@'Never less.'

@'Marx, of course, Marx,' said Quiggin testily, but perhaps

wavering in his belief that I was responsible for faking the

writing. <2'Das Kapital>2. . . . The Communist Manifesto.'

@'So it's Karl Marx, is it?' asked Mona.

@The name was evidently vaguely familiar to her, no

doubt from her earlier days when she had known Gypsy

Jones; had perhaps even taken part in such activities as sell-

ing <2War Never Pays]>2

@'Don't be ridiculous,' said Quiggin, by implication in-

cluding Mona in this reproof, probably more violently than

he intended. 'It was quite obvious that one of you was

rigging the thing. I admit I can't at present tell which of

you it was. I suspect it was Nick, as he is the only one who

knows I am a practising Marxist--and he persuaded me to

come here.'

@'I didn't know anything of the sort--and I've already

told you I can't write upside-down.'

@'Steady on,' said Templer. 'You can't accuse a fellow

guest of cheating at Planchette. Duels have been fought

for less. This will turn into another Tranby Croft case

unless we moderate our tone.'

@Quiggin made a despairing gesture at such frivolity of

manner.

@'I can't believe no one present knows the quotation,

"Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a

new one," ' he said. 'You will be telling me next you never

heard the words, "The Workers have no country." '

@'I believe Karl Marx has been "through" before,' said

Stripling, slowly and with great solemnity. 'Wasn't he a

revolutionary writer?'

@'He was,' said Quiggin, with heavy irony. 'He <2was>2 a

revolutionary writer.'

@<2'Do>2 let's try again,' said Mona.

@This time the writing changed to a small, niggling hand,

rather like that of Uncle Giles.

@<2'He is sick.'>2

@'Who is sick?'

@<2'You know well.'>2

@'Where is he?'

@<2'In his room.'>2

@'Where is his room?'

@<2'The House of Books.'>2

@The writing was getting smaller and smaller. I felt as if

I were taking part in one of those scenes from <2Alice in>2

<2Wonderland>2 in which the characters change their size.

@'What can it mean now?' asked Mona.

@<2'You have a duty.'>2

@Quiggin's temper seemed to have moved from annoyance,

mixed with contempt, to a kind of general uneasiness.

@'I suppose it isn't talking about St. John Clarke,' I

suggested.

@Quiggin's reaction to this remark was unexpectedly

violent. His sallow skin went white, and, instead of speak-

ing with his usual asperity, he said in a quiet, worried voice:

'I was beginning to wonder just the same thing. I don't

know that I really ought to have left him. Look here, can

I ring up the flat--just to make sure that everything is all

right?'

@'Of course,' said Templer.

@'This way?'

@We tried again. Before Quiggin had reached the door,

the board had moved and stopped. This time the result was

disappointing.  Planchette had written a single word, mono-

syllabic and indecent. Mona blushed.

@'That sometimes happens,' said Mrs. Erdleigh, calmly.

@She spoke as if it were as commonplace to see such things

written on blue ruled accounting paper as on the door or

wall of an alley. Neatly detaching that half of the sheet, she

tore it into small pieces and threw them into the waste-paper

basket.

@'Only too often,' said Stripling with a sigh.

@He had evidently accepted the fact that his enjoyment for

that afternoon was at an end. Mona giggled.

@'We will stop now,' said Mrs. Erdleigh, speaking with

the voice of authority. 'It is really no use continuing when

a Bad Influence once breaks through.'

@'I'm surprised he knew such a word,' said Templer.

@We sat for a time in silence. Quiggin's action in going

to the telephone possessed the force of one of those utterly

unexpected conversions, upon which a notorious drunkard

swears never again to touch alcohol, or a declared pacifist

enlists in the army. It was scarcely credible that Planchette

should have sent him bustling out of the room to enquire

after St. John Clarke's health, even allowing for the import-

ance to himself of the novelist as a livelihood.

@'We shall have to be departing soon, <2mon cher,'>2 said Mrs.

Erdleigh, showing Stripling the face of her watch.

@'Have some tea,' said Templer. 'It will be appearing at

any moment.'

@'No, we shall certainly have to be getting along, Pete,'

said Stripling, as if conscious that, having been indulged

over Planchette, he must now behave himself specially well.

'It has been a wonderful afternoon. Quite like the old days.

Wish old Sunny could have been here. Most interesting too.'

@He had evidently not taken in Quiggin's reason for hurry-

ing to the telephone, nor had any idea of the surprising

effect that Planchette's last few sentences had had on such

a professional sceptic. Perhaps he would have been pleased

to know that Quiggin had acquired at least enough belief

to be thrown into a nervous state by those cryptic remarks.

More probably, he would not have been greatly interested.

For Stripling, this had been a perfectly normal manner of

passing his spare time.  He would never be able to conceive

how far removed were such activities from Quiggin's daily

life and manner of approaching the world. In Stripling,

profound belief had taken the place of any sort of halting

imagination he might once have claimed.

@Quiggin now reappeared. He was even more disturbed

than before.

@'I am afraid I must go home immediately,' he said, in

some agitation. 'Do you know when there is a train? And

can I be taken to the station?  It is really rather urgent.'

@'Is he dying?' asked Mona, in an agonised voice.

@She was breathless with excitement at the apparent con-

firmation of a message from what Mrs. Erdleigh called 'the

Other Side'. She took Quiggin's arm, as if to soothe him.

He did not answer at once, apparently undecided at what

should be made public. Then he addressed himself to me.

@'The telephone was answered by Mark,' he said, through

his teeth.

@For Quiggin to discover Members reinstated in St. John

Clarke's flat within a few hours of his own departure was

naturally a serious matter.

@'And <2is>2 St. John Clarke worse?'

@'I couldn't find out for certain,' said Quiggin, almost

wretchedly, 'but I think he must be for Mark to be allowed

back. I suppose St. J. wanted something done in a hurry,

and told the maid to ring up Mark as I wasn't there. I

must go at once.'

@He turned towards the Templers.

@'I am afraid there is no train for an hour,' Templer said,

'but Jimmy is on his way to London, aren't you, Jimmy?

He will give you a lift.'

@'Of course, old chap, of course.'

@'Of course he can. So you can go with dear old Jimmy

and arrive in London in no time.  He drives like hell.'

@'No longer,' said Mrs. Erdleigh, with a smile. 'He drives

with care.'

@I am sure that the last thing Quiggin wanted at that

moment was to be handed over to Stripling and Mrs.

Erdleigh, but there was no alternative if he wanted to get

to London with the least possible delay. A curious feature

of the afternoon had been the manner in which all direct

contact between himself and Mrs. Erdleigh had somehow

been avoided. Each no doubt realised to the full that the

other possessed nothing to offer: that any exchange of

energy would have been waste of time.

@In Quiggin's mind, the question of St. John Clarke's

worsened state of health, as such, had now plainly given

place to the more immediate threat of Members re-entering

the novelist's household on a permanent footing. His fear

that the two developments might be simultaneous was, I

feel sure, not necessarily based upon entirely cynical

premises. In a weakened state, St. John Clarke might easily

begin to regret his earlier suspension of Members as a

secretary. Sick persons often vacillate. Quiggin's anxiety

was understandable. No doubt he regarded himself,

politically and morally, as a more suitable secretary than

Members. It was, therefore, reasonable that he should wish

to return as soon as possible to the field of operations.

@Recognising at once that he must inevitably accompany

the two of them, Quiggin accepted Stripling's offer of con-

veyance. He did this with a bad grace, but at the same

time insistently, to show there must be no delay now the

matter had been decided. This sudden disintegration of the

party was displeasing to Mona, who probably felt now that

she had wasted her opportunity of having Quiggin in the

house; just as on the previous day she had wasted her meet-

ing with him in the Ritz. She seemed, at any rate, over-

whelmed with vague, haunting regrets for the manner in

which things had turned out; all that unreasoning bitterness

and mortification to which women are so subject. For a

time she begged them to stay, but it was no good.

@'But <2promise>2 you will ring up.'

@She took Quiggin's hand. He seemed surprised, perhaps

even rather touched at the warmth with which she spoke.

He replied with more feeling than was usual in his manner

that he would certainly communicate with her.

@'I will let you know how St. J. is.'

@'Oh, <2do.'>2

@'Without fail.'

@'Don't forget.'

@Mrs. Erdleigh, in her travelling clothes, had reverted to

my first impression of her at the Ufford as priestess of some

esoteric cult. Wrapped about with scarves, veils and stoles,

she took my hand.

@'Have you met <2her>2 yet?' she enquired in a low voice.

@'Yes.'

@'Just as I told you?'

@'Yes.'

@Mrs. Erdleigh smiled to herself. They piled into the car,

Quiggin glowering in the back, hatless, but with a fairly

thick overcoat. Stripling drove off briskly, sending the crisp

snow in a shower from the wheels. The car disappeared

into the gloomy shadows of the conifers.

@We returned to the drawing-room. Templer threw him-

self into an armchair.

@'What a party,' he said. 'Poor old Jimmy really has landed

something this time. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't

have to marry that woman. She's like Rider Haggard's

<2She--She who must be obeyed.'>2

@'I thought she was wonderful,' said Mona.

@'So does Jimmy,' said Templer. 'You know, I can see a

look of Babs. Something in the way she carries herself.'

@I, too, had noticed an odd, remote resemblance in Mrs.

Erdleigh to his elder sister. However, Mona disagreed

strongly, and they began to argue.

@'It was extraordinary all that stuff about Marx coming

up,' said Templer. 'I suppose it was swilling about in

old Quiggin's head and somehow got released.'

@'Of course, you can never believe anything you can't

explain quite simply,' said Mona.

@'Why should I?' said Templer.

@Tea merged into drinks. Mona's temper grew worse. I

began to feel distinctly tired. Jean had brought out some

work, and was sewing. Templer yawned in his chair. I

wondered why he and his wife did not get on better. It was

extraordinary that he seemed to please so many girls, and

yet not her.

@'It was a pretty stiff afternoon,' he said.

@'I enjoyed it,' said Mona. 'It was a change.'

@'It certainly was.'

@They began to discuss Planchette again; ending inevitably

in argument. Mona stood up.

@'Let's go out tonight.'

@'Where to?'

@'We could dine at Skindles.'

@'We've done that exactly a thousand and twenty-seven

times. I've counted.'

@'Then the Ace of Spades.'

@'You know how I feel about the Ace of Spades after what

happened to me there.'

@'But I like it.'

@'Anyway, wouldn't it be nicer to eat in tonight? Unless

Nick and Jean are mad to make a night of it.'

@I had no wish to go out to dinner; Jean was non-

committal. The Templers continued to argue.  Suddenly

Mona burst into tears.

@'You never want to do <2anything>2 I want,' she said. 'If I

can't go out. I shall go to bed. They can send up something

on a tray. As a matter of fact I haven't been feeling well

all day.'

@She turned from him, and almost ran from the room,

@'Oh, hell,' said Templer. 'I suppose I shall have to see

about this. Help yourselves to another drink when you're

ready.'

@He followed his wife through the door. Jean and I were

alone. She gave me her hand, smiling, but resisting a closer

embrace.

@'Tonight?'

@'No.'

@'Why not?'

@'Not a good idea.'

@'I see.'

@'Sorry.'

@'When?'

@'Any time.'

@'Will you come to my flat?'

@'Of course.'

@'When?'

@'I've told you. Any time you like.'

@'Tuesday?'

@'No, not Tuesday.'

@'Wednesday, then?'

@'I can't manage Wednesday either.'

@'But you said any time.'

@'Any time but Tuesday or Wednesday.'

@I tried to remember what plans were already made, and

which could be changed. Thursday was a tangle of engage-

ments, hardly possible to rearrange at short notice with-

out infinite difficulties arising. Matters must be settled

quickly, because Templer might return to the room at any

moment.

@'Friday?'

@She looked doubtful. I thought she was going to insist on

Thursday. Perhaps the idea of doing so had crossed her

mind. A measure of capriciousness is, after all, natural in

women; perhaps fulfils some physiological need for both

sexes. A woman who loves you likes to torment you from

time to time; if not actually hurt you. If her first intention

had been to make further difficulties, she abandoned the

idea, but at the same time she did not speak. She seemed

to have no sense of the urgency of making some arrange-

ment quickly--so that we should not lose touch with each

other, and be reduced to the delay of writing letters. I

suffered some agitation. This conversation was failing

entirely to express my own feelings. Perhaps it seemed

equally unreal to her. If so, she was unwilling, perhaps

unable, to alleviate the strain. Probably women enjoy such

moments, which undoubtedly convey by intensity and un-

certainty a heightened awareness of their power. In spite

of apparent coldness of manner her eyes were full of tears,

As if we had already decided upon some definite and in-

judicious arrangement, she suddenly changed her approach.

@'You must be discreet,' she said.
All right.'

@'But really discreet.'

@'I promise.'

@'You will?'

@'Yes.'

@While talking, we had somehow come close together in a

manner that made practical discussion difficult. I felt tired,

mther angry, very much in love with her; on the edge of

one of those outbursts of irritation so easily excited by love.

@'I'll come to your flat on Friday,' she said abruptly.

@<34.>3

<1WHEN,>1 in early spring, pale sunlight was flickering behind

the mist above Piccadilly, the Isbister Memorial Exhibi-

tion opened on the upper floor of one of the galleries

there. I was attending the private view, partly for business

reasons, partly from a certain weakness for bad pictures,

especially bad portraits. Such a taste is hard to justify.

Perhaps the inclination is no more than a morbid curiosity

to see how far the painter will give himself away. Pictures,

apart from their %aesthetic interest, can achieve the mysteri-

ous fascination of those enigmatic scrawls on walls, the

expression of Heaven knows what psychological urge on

the part of the executant; for example, the for ever

anonymous drawing of Widmerpool in the <2cabinet>2 at La

Grenadi*!ere.

@In Isbister's work there was something of that inner

madness. The deliberate na*'ivet*'e with which he accepted

his business men, ecclesiastics and mayors, depicted by him

with all the crudeness of his accustomed application of

paint to canvas, conveyed an oddly sinister effect. Perhaps

it would be more accurate to say that Isbister set out to

paint what he supposed to be the fashionable view of such

people at any given moment. Thus, in his early days, a

general, or the chairman of some big concern, would be

represented in the respectively appropriate terms of Vic-

torian romantic success; the former, hero of the battlefield:

the latter, the industrious apprentice who has achieved his

worthy ambition. But as military authority and commercial

achievement became increasingly subject to political and

economic denigration, Isbister, keeping up with the times,

introduced a certain amount of what he judged to be

satirical comment. Emphasis would be laid on the general's

red face and medals, or the industrialist's huge desk and

cigar. There would be a suggestion that all was not well

with such people about. Probably Isbister was right from

a financial point of view to make this change, because cer-

tainly his sitters seemed to grow no fewer. Perhaps they too

felt a compulsive need for representation in contemporary

idiom, even though a tawdry one. It was a kind of insur-

ance against the attacks of people like Quiggin: a form of

public apology and penance. The result was certainly

curious. Indeed, often, even when there hung near-by

something far worthier of regard, I found myself stealing a

glance at an Isbister, dominating, by its aggressive treat-

ment, the other pictures hanging alongside.

@If things had turned out as they should, <2The Art of>2

<2Horace Isbister>2 would have been on sale at the table near

the door, over which a young woman with a pointed nose

and black fringe presided. As things were, it was doubtful

whether that volume would ever appear. The first person

I saw in the gallery was Sir Gavin Walpole-Wilson, who

stood in the centre of the room, disregarding the pictures,

but watching the crowd over the top of huge horn-

rimmed spectacles, which he had pushed well forward on

his nose. His shaggy homespun overcoat was swinging

open, stuffed with long -envelopes and periodicals which

protruded from the pockets. He looked no older; perhaps

a shade less sane. We had not met since the days when I

used to dine with the Walpole-Wilsons for 'debutante

dances'; a period now infinitely remote. Rather to my

surprise he appeared to recognise me immediately, though

it was unlikely that he knew my name. I enquired after

Eleanor.

@'Spends all her time in the country now,' said Sir Gavin.

'As you may remember, Eleanor was never really happy

away from Hinton.'

@He spoke rather sadly. I knew he was confessing his

own and his wife's defeat. His daughter had won the long

conflict with her parents. I wondered if Eleanor still wore

her hair in a bun at the back and trained dogs with a

whistle. It was unlikely that she would have changed much.

@'I expect she finds plenty to do,' I offered.

@'Her breeding keeps her quiet,' said Sir Gavin.

@He spoke almost with distaste. However, perceiving that

I felt uncertain as to the precise meaning of this explanation

of Eleanor's existing state, he added curtly:

@'Labradors.'

@'Like Sultan?'

@'After Sultan died she took to breeding them. And then

she sees quite a lot of her friend, Norah Tolland.'

@By common consent we abandoned the subject of

Eleanor. Taking my arm, he led me across the floor of

the gallery, until we stood in front of a three-quarter-length

picture of a grey-moustached man in the uniform of the

diplomatic corps; looking, if the truth be known, not unlike

Sir Gavin himself.

@'Isn't it terrible?'

@'Awful.'

@'It's Saltonstall,' said Sir Gavin, his voice suggesting that

some just retribution had taken place. 'Saltonstall who

always posed as a <2Man of Taste.'>2

@'Isbister has made him look more like a Christmas Tree

of Taste.'

@'You see, my father-in-law's portrait is a different matter,'

said Sir Gavin, as if unable to withdmw his eyes from this

likeness of his former colleague. 'There is no parallel at all.

My father-in-law was painted by Isbister, it is true. Isbister

was what he liked. He possessed a large collection of
horoughly bad pictures which we had some difficulty in

disposing of at his death. He bought them simply and

solely because he liked the subjects. He knew about ship-

ping and finance--not about painting.  But he did not pose

as a Man of Taste. Far from it.'

@'Deacon's <2Boyhood of Cyrus>2 in the hall at Eaton Square

is from his collection, isn't it?'

@I could not help mentioning this picture that had once

meant so much to me and to name the dead is always a

kind of tribute to them: one I felt Mr. Deacon deserved.

@'I believe so,' said Sir Gavin. 'It sounds his style. But

Saltonstall, on the other hand, with his <2vers de societ*'e,>2 and

all his talk about Foujita and Pruna and goodness knows

who else--but when it comes to his own portrait, it's

Isbister. Let's see how they have hung my father-in-law.'

@We passed on to Lord Aberavon's portrait, removed from

its usual place in the dining-room at Hinton Hoo, now

flanked by Sir Horrocks Rusby, K.C., and Cardinal Whelan.

Lady Walpole-Wilson's father had been painted in peer's

robes over the uniform of a deputy-lieutenant, different

tones of scarlet contrasted against a crimson velvet curtain:

a pictorial experiment that could not be considered success-

ful. Through french windows behind Lord Aberavon

stretched a broad landscape--possibly the vale of

Glamorgan--in which something had also gone seriously

wrong with the colour values. Even Isbister himself, in

his own lifetime, must have been aware of deficiency.

@I glanced at the cardinal next door, notable as the only

picture I had ever heard Widmerpool spontaneously praise.

Here, too, the reds had been handled with some savagery.

Sir Gavin shook his head and moved on to examine two of

Isbister's genre pictures. 'Clergyman eating an apple' and

'The Old Humorists'. I found myself beside Clapham, a

director of the firm that published St. John Clarke's novels.

He was talking to Smethyck, a museum official I had

known slightly at the university.

@'When is your book on Isbister appearing?' Clapham

asked at once. 'You announced it some time ago. This

would have been the moment--with the St. John Clarke

introduction.'

@Clapham had spoken accusingly, his voice implying the

fretfulness of all publishers that one of their authors should

betray them with a colleague, however lightly.

@'I went to see St. John Clarke the other day,' Clapham

continued. 'I was glad to find him making a good recovery

after his illness. Found him reading one of the young Com-

munist poets. We had an interesting talk.'

@'Does anybody read St. John Clarke himself now?' asked

Smethyck, languidly.

@Like many of his profession, Smethyck was rather

proud of his looks, which he had been carefully re-examin-

ing in the dark, mirror-like surface of Sir Horrocks Rusby,

framed for some unaccountable reason under glass. Clap-

ham was up in arms at once at such superciliousness.

@'Of course people read St. John Clarke,' he said, snap-

pishly. 'Though perhaps not in your ultra-sophisticated

circles, where everything ordinary people understand is

sneered at.'

@'Personally, I don't hold any views about St. John Clarke,'

said Smethyck, without looking round. 'I've never read

any of them. All I wanted to know was whether people

bought his books.'

@He continued to ponder the cut of his suit in this

adventitious looking-glass, deciding at last that his hair

needed smoothing down on one side.

@'I don't mind admitting to you both,' said Clapham,

moving a step or two closer and speaking rather thickly,

'that when I finished <2Fields of Amaranth>2 there were tears

in my eyes.'

@Smethyck made no reply to this; nor could I myself think

of a suitable rejoinder.

@'That was some years ago,' said Clapham.

@This qualification left open the alternative of whether

St. John Clarke still retained the power of exciting such

strong feeling in a publisher, or whether Clapham himself

had grown more capable of controlling his emotions.

@'Why, there's Sillery,' said Smethyck, who seemed

thoroughly bored by the subject of St. John Clarke. 'I

believe he was to be painted by Isbister, if he had recovered.

Let's go and talk to him.'

@We left Clapham, still muttering about the extent of St.

John Clarke's sales, and the beauty and delicacy of his

early style. I had not seen Sillery since Mrs. Andriadis's

party, three or four years before, though I had heard by

chance that he had recently returned from America, where

he had held some temporary academical post, or been on a

lecture tour. His white hair and dark, Nietzschean

moustache remained unchanged, but his clothes looked older

than ever. He was carrying an unrolled umbrella in one

hand; in the other a large black homburg, thick in grease.

He began to grin widely as soon as he saw us.

@'Hullo, Sillers,' said Smethyck, who had been one of

Sillery's favourites among the undergraduates who con-

stituted his <2salon.>2 'I did not know you were interested in

art.'

@'Not interested in art?' said Sillery, enjoying this accusa-

tion a great deal. 'What an idea. Still, I am, as it happens,

here for semi-professional reasons, as you might say. I

expect you are too, Michael. There is some nonsense about

the College wanting a pitcher o' me ole mug. Can't think

why they should need such a thing, but there it is. 'Course

Isbister can't do it 'cos 'e's tucked 'is toes in now but I

thought I'd just come an' take a look at the sorta thing

that's expected.'

@'And what do you think, Sillers?'

@'Just as well he's passed away, perhaps,' sniggered Sillery,

suddenly abandoning his character-acting. 'In any case I

always think an artist is rather an embarrassment to his

own work. But what Ninetyish things I am beginning to

say. It must come from talking to so many Americans.'

@'But you can't want to be painted by anyone even remotely

like Isbister,' said Smethyck. 'Surely you can get a painter

who is a little more modern than that. What about this

man Barnby, for example?'

@'Ah, we are very conservative about art at the older

universities,' said Sillery, grinning delightedly. 'Wouldn't

say myself that I want an Isbister exactly, though I heard

the Warden comparing him with Antonio Moro the other

night. 'Fraid the Warden doesn't know much about the

graphic arts, though. But then I don't want the wretched

picture painted at all. What do members of the College

want to look at my old phiz for, I should like to know?'

@We assured him that his portrait would be welcomed by

all at the university.

@'I don't know about Brightman,' said Sillery, showing

his teeth for a second. 'I don't at all know about Brightman.

I don't think Brightman would want a picture of me. But

what have you been doing with yourself, Nicholas? Writing

more books, I expect. I am afraid I haven't read the first

one yet. Do you ever see Charles Stringham now?'

@'Not for ages.'

@'A pity about that divorce,' said Sillery. 'You young

men will get married. It is so often a mistake. I hear he

is drinking just a tiny bit too much nowadays. It was a

mistake to leave Donners-Brebner, too.'

@'I expect you've heard about J. G. Quiggin taking Mark

Members's place with St. John Clarke?'

@'Hilarious that, wasn't it?' agreed Sillery. 'That sort of

thing always happens when two clever boys come from the

same place. They can't help competing. Poor Mark seems

quite upset about it. Can't think why. After all, there are

plenty of other glittering prizes for those with stout hearts

and sharp swords, just as Lord Birkenhead remarked. I

shall be seeing Quiggin this afternoon, as it happens--a

little political affair-Quiggin lives a very <2mouvement*'e>2 life

these days, it seems.'

@Sillery chuckled to himself. There was evidently some

secret he did not intend to reveal. In any case he had by

then prolonged the conversation sufficiently for his own

satisfaction.

@'Saw you chatting to Gavin Walpole-Wilson,' he said.
Ought to go and have a word with him myself about these

continuous hostilities between Bolivia and Paraguay. Been

going on too long. Want to get in touch with his sister

about it. Get one of her organisations to work. Time for

liberal-minded people to step in. Can't have them cutting

each other's throats in this way. Got to be quick, or I shall

be late for Quiggin.'

@He shambled off. Smethyck smiled at me and shook

his head, at the same time indicating that he had seen

enough for one afternoon.

@I strolled on round the gallery. I had noted in the cata-

logue a picture called 'The Countess of Ardglass with

Faithful Girl' and, when I arrived before it, I found Lady

Ardglass herself inspecting the portrait. She was leaning

on the arm of one of the trim grey-haired men who had
ccompanied her in the Ritz: or perhaps another example

of their category, so like as to be indistinguishable. Isbister

had painted her in an open shirt and riding breeches, stand-

ing beside the mare, her arm slipped through the reins:

with much attention to the high polish of the brown

boots.

@'Pity Jumbo could never raise the money for it,' Bijou

Ardglass was saying. 'Why don't you make an offer, Jack,

and give it me for my birthday? You'd probably get it

dirt cheap.'

@'I'm much too broke,' said the grey-haired man.

@'You always say that. If you'd given me the car you

promised me I should at least have saved the nine shillings

I've already spent on taxis this morning.'

@Jean never spoke of her husband, and I knew no details

of the episode with Lady Ardglass that had finally separated

them. At the same time, now that I saw Bijou, I could

not help feeling that she and I were somehow connected by

what had happened. I wondered what Duport had in

common with me that linked us through Jean. Men who

are close friends tend to like different female types; perhaps

the contrary process also operated, and the fact that he had

seemed so unsympathetic when we had met years before

was due to some innate sense of rivalry. I was to see Jean

that afternoon. She had borrowed a friend's flat for a week

or so, while she looked about for somewhere more per-

manent to live. This had made things easier. Emotional

crises always promote the urgent need for executive action,

so that the times when we most hope to be free from the

practical administration of life are always those when the

need to cope with a concrete world is more than ever

necessary.

@Owing to domestic arrangements connected with getting

a nurse for her child, she would not be at home until late

in the afternoon. I wasted some time at the Isbister show,

before walking across the park to the place where she was

living. I had expected to see Quiggin at the gallery, but

Sillery's remarks indicated that he would not be there. The

last time I had met him, soon after the Templer week-end,

it had turned out that, in spite of the temporary reappear-

ance of Members at St. John Clarke's sick bed, Quiggin

was still firmly established in his new position. He now

seemed scarcely aware that there had ever been a time when

he had not acted as the novelist's secretary, referring to his
mployer's foibles with a weary though tolerant familiarity,

as if he had done the job for years.  He had quickly brushed

aside enquiry regarding his journey to London with Mrs.

Erdleigh and Jimmy Stripling.

@'What a couple,' he commented.

@I had to admit they were extraordinary enough. Quiggin

had resumed his account of St. John Clarke, his state of

health and his eccentricities, the last of which were repre-

sented by his new secretary in a decidedly different light

from that in which they had been displayed by Members.

St. John Clarke's every action was now expressed in Marxist

terms, as if some political Circe had overnight turned the

novelist into an entirely Left Wing animal. No doubt

Quiggin judged it necessary to handle his new situation

firmly on account of the widespread gossip regarding St.

John Clarke's change of secretary; for in circles frequented

by Members and Quiggin ceaseless argument had taken

place as to which of them had 'behaved badly'.

@Thinking it best from my firm's point of view to open

diplomatic relations, as it were, with the new government, I

had asked if there was any hope of our receiving the Isbister

introduction in the near future. Quiggin's answer to this

had been to make an affirmative gesture with his

hands. I had seen Members employ the same move-

ment, perhaps derived by both of them from St. John

Clarke himself.

@'That was exactly what I wanted to discuss when I came

to the Ritz,' Quiggin had said. 'But you insisted on going

out with your wealthy friends.'

@'You must admit that I arranged for you to meet my

wealthy friends, as you call them, at the first opportunity--

within twenty-four hours, as a matter of fact.'

@Quiggin smiled and inclined his head, as if assenting to

my claim that some amends had been attempted.

@'As l have tried to explain,' he said, 'St. J.'s views have

changed a good deal lately. Indeed, he has entirely come

round to my own opinion--that the present situation cannot

last much longer. <2We will not tolerate it.>2 All thinking

men are agreed about that.  St. J. <2wants>2 to do the introduc-

tion when his health gets a bit better--and he has time

to spare from his political interests--but he has decided

to write the Isbister foreword from a Marxist point of

view.'

@'You ought to have obtained some first-hand information

for him when Marx came through on Planchette.'

@Quiggin frowned at this levity.

@'What rot that was,' he said. 'I suppose Mark and his

psychoanalyst gang would explain it by one of their dis-

sertations on the subconscious. Perhaps in that particular

respect they would be right. No doubt they would add a

lot of irrelevant stuff about Surrealism. But to return to

Isbister's pictures, I think they would not make a bad

subject treated in that particular manner.'

@'You could preach a whole Marxist sermon on the portrait

of Peter Templer's father alone.'

@'You could, indeed,' said Quiggin, who seemed not abso-

lutely sure that the matter in hand was being negotiated

with sufficient seriousness. 'But what a charming person

Mrs. Templer is. She has changed a lot since her days as

a model, or mannequin, or whatever she was. It is a great

pity she never seems to sec any intelligent people now. I

can't think how she can stand that stockbroker husband

of hers. How rich is he?'

@'He took a bit of a knock in the slump.'

@'How do they get on together?'

@'All right, so far as I know.'

@'St. J. always says there is "nothing sadder than a happy

mariage".'

@'Is that why he doesn't risk it himself?'

@'I should think Mona will go off with somebody,' said

Quiggin, decisively.

@I considered this comment impertinent, though there was

certainly no reason why Quiggin and Templer should be

expected to like one another. Perhaps Quiggin's instinct

was correct, I thought, however unwilling I might be to

agree openly with him. There could be no doubt that the

Templers' marriage was not going very well. At the same

time, I did not intend to discuss them with Quiggin, to

whom, in any case, there seemed no point in explaining

Templer's merits. Quiggin would not appreciate these even

if they were brought to his notice; while, if it suited him,

he would always be ready to reverse his opinion about

Templer or anyone else.

@By then I had become sceptical of seeing the Isbister

introduction, Marxist or otherwise. In itself, this latest

suggestion did not strike me as specially surprising. Taking

into account the fact that St, John Clarke had made the

plunge into 'modernism', the project seemed neither more

nor less extraordinary than tackling Isbister's pictures from

the point of view of Psychoanalysis, Surrealism, Roman

Catholicism, Social Credit, or any other specialised

approach. In fact some such doctrinal method of attack

was then becoming very much the mode; taking the place

of the highly coloured critical flights of an earlier genera-

tion that still persisted in some quarters, or the severely

technical criticism of the %aesthetic puritans who had ruled

the roost since the war.

@The foreword would now, no doubt, speak of Isbister

'laughing up his sleeve' at the rich men and public

notabilities he had painted; though Members, who, with

St. John Clarke, had once visited Isbister's studio in St.

John's Wood for some kind of a reception held there, had

declared that nothing could have exceeded the painter's

obsequiousness to his richer patrons. Members was not

always reliable in such matters, but it was certainly true that

Isbister's portraits seemed to combine as a rule an effort to

flatter his client with apparent attempts to make some com-

ment to be easily understood by the public. Perhaps it was

this inward struggle that imparted to his pictures that

peculiar fascination to which I have already referred. How-

ever, so far as my firm was concerned, the goal was merely

to get the introduction written and the book published.

@'What is Mark doing now?' I asked.

@Quiggin looked surprised at the question; as if everyone

must know by now that Members was doing very well for

himself.

@'With Boggis & Stone--you know they used to be the Vox

Populi Press--we got him the job.'

@'Who were "we"?'

@'St. J. and myself. St. J. arranged most of it through

Howard Craggs. As you know, Craggs used to be the

managing director of the Vox Populi.'

@'But I thought Mark wasn't much interested in politics.

Aren't all Boggis & Stone's books about Lenin and Trotsky

and Litvinov and the Days of October and all that?'

@Quiggin agreed, with an air of rather forced gaiety.

@'Well, haven't most of us been living in a fool's paradise

far too long now?' he said, speaking as if to make an

appeal to my better side. 'Isn't it time that Mark--and

others too--took some notice of what is happening in the

world?'

@'Does he get a living wage at Boggis & Stone's?'

@'With his journalism he can make do. A small firm like

that can't afford to pay a very munificent salary, it's true.

He still gets a retainer from St. J. for sorting out the books

once a month.'

@I did not imagine this last arrangement was very popular

with Quiggin from the way he spoke of it.

@'As a matter of fact,' he said, 'I persuaded St. J. to arrange

for Mark to have some sort of a footing in a more politically

alive world before he got rid of him. That is where the

future lies for all of us.'

@'Did Gypsy Jones transfer from the Vox Populi to

Boggis & Stone?'

@Quiggin laughed now with real amusement.

@'Oh, no,' he said. 'I forgot you knew her. She left quite a

time before the amalgamation took place. She has some-

thing better to do now.'

@He paused and moistened his lips; adding rather mys-

teriously:

@'They say Gypsy is well looked on by the Party.'

@This remark did not convey much to me in those days.

I was more interested to see how carefully Quiggin's plans

must have been laid to have prepared a place for Members

even before he had been ejected from his job. That cer-

tainly showed forethought.

@'Are you writing another book?' said Quiggin.

@'Trying to--and you?'

@'I liked your first,' said Quiggin.

@He conveyed by these words a note of warning that, in

spite of his modified approval, things must not go too far

where books were concerned.

@'Personally, I am not too keen to rush into print,' he said.

'I am still collecting material for my survey, <2Unburnt>2

<2Boats.'>2

@I did not meet Members to hear his side of the story

until much later, in fact on that same afternoon of the

Isbister Memorial Exhibition. I ran into him on my way

through Hyde Park, not far from the Achilles Statue. (As

it happened, it was close to the spot where I had come on

Barbara Goring and Eleanor Walpole-Wilson, the day we

had visited the Albert Memorial together.)

@The weather had turned colder again, and the park was

dank, with a kind of sea mist veiling the trees. Members

looked shabbier than was usual for him: shabby and rather

worried. In our undergraduate days he had been a tall,

willowy, gesticulating figure, freckled and beady-eyed;

hurrying through the lanes and byways of the university,

abstractedly alone, like the Scholar-Gypsy, or straggling

along the shopfronts of the town in the company of

acquaintances, seemingly chosen for their peculiar resem-

blance to himself. Now he had grown into a terse, emaci-

ated, rather determined young man, with a neat profile and

chilly manner: a person people were beginning to know by

name. In fact the critics, as a whole, had spoken so highly

of his latest volume of verse--the one through which an

undercurrent of psychoanalytical phraseology had inter-

mittently run--that even Quiggin (usually as sparing of

praise as Uncle Giles himself) had, in one of his more

unbending moments at a sherry party, gone so far as to

admit publicly:

@'Mark has arrived.'

@As St. John Clarke's secretary, Members had been com-

petent to deal at a moment's notice with most worldly

problems. For example, he could cut short the beery protests

of some broken-down crony of the novelist's past, arrived

unexpectedly on the doorstep--or, to be more precise, on

the landing of the block of flats where St. John Clarke

lived--with a view to borrowing 'a fiver' on the strength of

'the old days'. Any such former boon companion, if strong-

willed, might have got away with 'half a sovereign' (as

St. John Clarke always called that sum) had he gained entry

to the novelist himself. With Members as a buffer, he soon

found himself escorted to the lift, having to plan, as he

descended, both then and for the future, economic attack

elsewhere.

@Alternatively, the matter to be regulated might be the

behaviour of some great lady, aware that St. John Clarke

was a person of a certain limited eminence, but at the same

time ignorant of his credentials to celebrity. Again,

Members could put right a situation that had gone amiss.

Lady Huntercombe must have been guilty of some such

social dissonance at her own table (before a secretary had

come into existence to adjust such matters by a subsequent

word) because Members was fond of quoting a <2mot>2 of his

master's to the effect that dinner at the Huntercombes'

possessed 'only two dramatic features--the wine was a farce

and the food a tragedy'.

@In fact to get rid of a secretary who performed his often

difficult functions so effectively was a rash step on the part

of a man who liked to be steered painlessly through the

shoals and shallows of social life. Indeed, looking back after-

wards, the dismissal of Members might almost be regarded

as a landmark in the general disintegration of society in its

traditional form. It was an act of individual folly on the

part of St. John Clarke; a piece of recklessness that well

illustrates the mixture of self-assurance and <2ennui>2 which

together contributed so much to condition the state of mind

of people like St. John Clarke at that time. Of course I did

not recognise its broader aspects then. The duel between

Members and Quiggin seemed merely an entertaining con-

flict to watch, rather than the significant crumbling of

social foundations.

@On that dank afternoon in the park Members had aban-

doned some of his accustomed coldness of manner. He

seemed glad to talk to someone--probably to anyone--about

his recent ejection. He began on the subject at once, drawing

his tightly-waisted overcoat more closely round him, while

he contracted his sharp, beady brown eyes. Separation from

St. John Clarke, and association with the firm of Boggis &

Stone, had for some reason renewed his former resemblance

to an ingeniously constructed marionette or rag doll.

@'There had been a slight sense of strain for some months

between St. J. and myself,' he said. 'An absolutely trivial

matter about taking a girl out to dinner. Perhaps rather

foolishly, I had told St. J. I was going to a lecture on the

Little Entente. Howard Craggs--whom I am now work-

ing with--happened to be introducing the lecturer, and so

of course within twenty-four hours he had managed to

mention to St. J. the fact that I had not been present. It

was awkward, naturally, but I did not think St. J. really

minded.

@'But why did you want to know about the Little Entente?'

@'St. J. had begun to be rather keen on what he called

"the European Situation",' said Members, brushing aside

my surprise as almost impertinent. 'I always liked to

humour his whims.'

@'But I thought his great thing was the Ivory Tower?'

@'Of course, I found out later that Quiggin had put him

up to "the European Situation",' admitted Members, grudg-

ingly. 'But after all, an artist has certain responsibilities. I

expect you are a supporter of the League yourself, my dear

Nicholas.'

@He smiled as he uttered the last part of the sentence,

though speaking as if he intended to administer a slight, if

well deserved, rebuke. In doing this he involuntarily

adopted a more personal rendering of Quiggin's own nasal

intonation, which rendered quite unnecessary the explana-

tion that the idea had been Quiggin's. Probably the very

words he used were Quiggin's, too.

@'But politics were just what you used to complain of in

Quiggin.'

@'Perhaps Quiggin was right in that respect, if in no other,'

said Members, giving his tinny, bitter laugh.

@'And then?'

@'It turned out that St. J.'s feelings <2were>2 rather hurt.'

@Members paused, as if he did not know how best to set

about explaining the situation further. He shook his

head once or twice in his old, abstracted Scholar-Gypsy

manner. Then he began, as it were, at a new place in his

narrative.

@'As you probably know,' he continued, 'I can say without

boasting that I have done a good deal to change--why

should I not say it?--to improve St. J.'s attitude towards

intellectual matters. Do you know, when I first came to

him he thought Matisse was a <2plage>2--no, I mean it.'

@He made no attempt to relax his features, nor join in

audible amusement at such a state of affairs. Instead, he

continued to record St. John Clarke's shortcomings.

@'That much quoted remark of his: "Gorki is a Russian

d'Annunzio"--he got it from me. I happened to say at tea

one day that I thought if d'Annunzio had been born in

Nijni Novgorod he would have had much the same career

as Gorki. All St. J. did was to turn the words round and

use them as his own.'

@'But you still see him from time to time?'

@Members shied away his rather distinguished profile like

a high-bred but displeased horse.

@'Yes--and no,' he conceded. 'It's rather awkward. I don't

know how much Quiggin told you, nor if he spoke the

truth.'

@'He said you came in occasionally to look after the books.'

@'Only once in a way. I've got to earn a living somehow.

Besides, I am attached to St. J.--even after the way he has

behaved. I need not tell you that he does not like parting

with money. I scarcely get enough for my work on the

books to cover my bus fares. It is a strain having to avoid

that <2*^ame de boue,>2 too, whenever I visit the flat. He is

usually about somewhere, spying on everyone who crosses

the threshold.'

@'And what about St. John Clarke's conversion to

Marxism?'

@'When I first persuaded St. J. to look at the world in a

contemporary manner,' said Members slowly, adopting the

tone of one determined not to be hurried in his story by

those whose interest in it was actuated only by vulgar

curiosity--'When I first persuaded him to that, I took an

early opportunity to show him Quiggin. After all, Quiggin

was supposed to be my friend--and, whatever one may

think of his behaviour as a friend, he has--or had--some

talent.'

@Members waited for my agreement before continuing, as

if the thought of displacement by a talentless Quiggin would

add additional horror to his own position. I concurred that

Quiggin's talent was only too apparent.

@'From the very beginning I feared the risk of things going

wrong on account of St. J.'s squeamishness about people's

personal appearance. For example, I insisted that Quiggin

should put on a clean shirt when he came to see St. J. I

told him to attend to his nails. I even gave him an orange

stick with which to do so.'

@'And these preparations were successful?'

@'They met once or twice. Quiggin was even asked to the

flat. They got on better than I had expected. I admit that.

All the same, I never felt that the meetings were really

<2enjoyable.>2 I was sorry about that, because I thought

Quiggin's ideas would be useful to St. J. I do not always

agree with Quiggin's approach to such things as the arts,

for example, but he is keenly aware of present-day

tendencies. However, I decided in the end to explain to

Quiggin that I feared St. J. was not very much taken with

him.'

@'Did Quiggin accept that?'

@'He did,' said Members, again speaking with bitterness.

'He accepted it without a murmur. That, in itself, should

have put me on my guard. I know now that almost as soon

as I introduced them, they began to see each other when I

was not present.'

@Members checked himself at this point, perhaps feeling

that to push his indictment to such lengths bordered on

absurdity.

@'Of course, there was no particular reason why they

should not meet,' he allowed. 'It was just odd--and rather

unfriendly--that neither of them should have mentioned

their meetings to me. St. J. always loves new people. 'Un-

made friends are like unmade beds,' he has often said.

"They should be attended to early in the morning." '

@Members drew a deep breath that was almost a sigh.

There was a pause.

@'But I thought you said he was so squeamish about

people?'

@'Not when he has once decided they are going to be

successful.'

@'That's what he thinks about Quiggin?'

@Members nodded.

@'Then I noticed St. J. was beginning to describe everything

as "bourgeois",' he said. 'Wearing a hat was "bourgeois", eat-

ing pudding with a fork was "bourgeois", the Ritz was "bour-

geois", Lady Huntercombe was "bourgeois" -- he meant

"bourgeois", of course, but French is not one of St. J.'s

long suits. Then one morning at breakfast he said C*'ezanne

was "bourgeois". At first I thought he meant that only

middle-class people put too much emphasis on such things--

that a true aristocrat could afford to ignore them.  It was a

favourite theme of St. J.'s that "natural aristocrats" were the

only true ones. He regarded himself as a "natural aristo-

crat". At the same time he felt that a "natural aristocrat"

had a right to mix with the ordinary kind, and latterly he

had spent more and more of his time in rather grand circles

--and in fact had come almost to hate people who were not

rather smart, or at least very rich. For example, I remember

him describing--well, I won't say whom, but he is a novelist

who sells very well and you can probably guess the name--

as "the kind of man who knows about as much about <2place->2

<2ment>2 as to send the wife of a younger son of a marquess

in to dinner before the daughter of an earl married to a

commoner". He thought a lot about such things. That was

why I had been at first afraid of introducing him to

Quiggin. And then--when we began discussing C*'ezanne--

it turned out that he had been using the word "bourgeois"

all the time in the Marxist sense. I didn't know he had

even heard of Marx, much less was at all familiar with his

theories.'

@'I seem to remember an article he wrote describing him-

self as a "Gladstonian Liberal"--in fact a Liberal of the

most old-fashioned kind.'

@'You do, you do,' said Members, almost passionately. 'I

wrote it for him, as a matter of fact. You couldn't have

expressed it better. <2A Liberal of the most old-fashioned>2

<2kind.>2 Local Option--Proportional Representation--Welsh

Disestablishment--the whole bag of tricks. That was just

about as far as he got. But now everything is "bourgeois"---

Liberalism, I have no doubt, most of all. As a matter of fact,

his politics were the only liberal thing about him.'

@'And it began as soon as he met Quiggin?'

@'I first noticed the change when he persuaded me to

join in what he called "collective action on the part of

writers and artists"--going to meetings to protest against

Manchuria and so on. I agreed, first of all, simply to humour

him. It was just as well I did, as a matter of fact, because

it led indirectly to another job when he turned his back on

me. You know, what St. J. really wants is a son. He wants
o be a father without having a wife.'

@'I thought everyone always tried to avoid that.'

@'In the Freudian sense,' said Members, impatiently, 'his

nature requires a father-son relationship. Unfortunately,

the situation becomes a little too life-like, and one is faced

with a kind of artificially constructed %OEdipus situation.'

@'Can't you re-convert him from Marxism to psycho-

analysis?'

@Members looked at me fixedly.

@'St. J. has always pooh-poohed the subconscious,' he said.

@We were about to move off in our respective directions

when my attention was caught by a disturbance coming

from the road running within the railings of the park. It

was a sound, harsh and grating, though at the same time

shrill and suggesting complaint. These were human voices

raised in protest. Turning, I saw through the mist that

increasingly enveloped the park a column of persons enter-

ing beneath the arch. They trudged behind a mounted

policeman, who led their procession about twenty yards

ahead. Evidently a political 'demonstration' of some sort

was on its way to the north side where such meetings were

held. From time to time these persons raised a throaty

cheer, or an individual voice from amongst them bawled

out some form of exhortation. A strident shout, similar to

that which had at first drawn my attention, now sounded

again. We moved towards the road to obtain a better

view.

@The front rank consisted of two men in cloth caps, one

with a beard, the other wearing dark glasses, who carried

between them a banner upon which was inscribed the

purpose and location of the gathering. Behind these came

some half a dozen personages, marching almost doggedly

out of step, as if to deprecate even such a minor element of

militarism. At the same time there was a vaguely official

air about them. Among these, I thought I recognised the

face and figure of a female Member of Parliament whose

photograph occasionally appeared in the papers. Next to

this woman tramped Sillery. He had exchanged his black

soft hat of earlier afternoon for a cloth cap similar to that

worn by the bearers of the banner: his walrus moustache

and thick strands of white hair blew furiously in the wind.

From time to time he clawed at the arm of a gloomy-look-

ing man next to him who walked with a limp. He was

grinning all the while to himself, and seemed to be hugely

enjoying his role in the procession.

@In the throng that straggled several yards behind these

mort important figures I identified two young men who

used to frequent Mr. Deacon's antique shop; one of whom,

indeed, was believed to have accompanied Mr. Deacon him-

self on one of his holidays in Cornwall. I thought,

immediately, that Mr. Deacon's other associate, Gypsy

Jones, might also be of the party, but could see no sign of

her. Probably, as Quiggin had suggested, she belonged by

then to a more distinguished grade of her own hierarchy

than that represented by this heterogeneous collection, nearly

all apparently 'intellectuals' of one kind or another.

@However, although interested to see Sillery in such

circumstances, there was another far more striking aspect

of the procession which a second later riveted my eyes.

Members must have taken in this particular spectacle at

the same instant as myself, because I heard him beside me

give a gasp of irritation.

@Three persons immediately followed the group of

notables with whom Sillery marched. At first, moving

closely together through the mist, this trio seemed like a

single grotesque three-headed animal, forming the figure-

head of an ornamental car on the roundabout of a fair.

As they jolted along, however, their separate entities became

revealed, manifesting themselves as a figure in a wheeled

chair, jointly pushed by a man and a woman. At first I

could not believe my eyes, perhaps even wished to disbelieve

them, because I allowed my attention to be distracted for a

moment by Sillery's voice shouting in high, almost jocular

tones: 'Abolish the Means Test]' He had uttered this cry

just as he came level with the place where Members and I

stood; but he was too occupied with his own concerns to

notice us there, although the park was almost empty.

@Then I looked again at the three other people, thinking

I might find myself mistaken in what I had at first sup-

posed. On the contrary, the earlier impression was correct.

The figure in the wheeled chair was St. John Clarke. He

was being propelled along the road, in unison, by Quiggin

and Mona Templer.

@'My God]' said Members, quite quietly.

@'Did you see Sillery?'

@I asked this because I could think of no suitable comment

regarding the more interesting group. Members took no

notice of the question.

@'I never thought they would go through with it,' he said.

@Neither St. John Clarke, nor Quiggin, wore hats. The

novelist's white hair, unenclosed in a cap such as Sillery

wore, was lifted high, like an elderly Struwwelpeter's, in

the stiff breeze that was beginning to blow through the

branches. Quiggin was dressed in the black leather overcoat

he had worn in the Ritz, a red woollen muffler riding up

round his neck, his skull cropped like a convicts'. No doubt

intentionally, he had managed to make himself look like a

character from one of the novels of Dostoievski. Mona, too,

was hatless, with dishevelled curls: her face very white above

a high-necked polo jumper covered by a tweed overcoat of

smart cut. She was looking remarkably pretty, and, like

Sillery, seemed to be enjoying herself. On the other hand, the

features of the two men with her expressed only inexorable

sternness. Every few minutes, when the time came for a

general shout to be mised, St. John Clarke would brandish

in his hand a rolled-up copy of one of the 'weeklies', as he

yelled the appropriate slogan in a high, excited voice.

@'It's an absolute scandal,' said Members breathlessly. 'I

heard rumours that something of the sort was on foot. The

strain may easily kill St. J. He ought not to be up--much

less taking part in an open-air meeting before the warmer

weather comes.'

@I was myself less surprised at the sight of Quiggin and

St. John Clarke in such circumstances than to find Mona

teamed up with the pair of them.  For Quiggin, this kind of

thing had become, after all, almost a matter of routine.

It was 'the little political affair' Sillery had mentioned at

the private view. St. John Clarke's collaboration in such an

outing was equally predictable--apart from the state of his

health--after what Members and Quiggin had both said

about him. From his acceptance of Quiggin's domination

he would henceforward join that group of authors, dons,

and clergymen increasingly to be found at that period on

political platforms of a 'Leftish' sort. To march in some

public 'demonstration' was an almost unavoidable condition

of his new commitments. As it happened he was fortunate

enough on this, his first appearance, to find himself in a

conveyance. In the wheeled chair, with his long white locks,

he made an effective figure, no doubt popular with the

organisers and legitimately gratifying to himself.

@It was Mona's presence that was at first inexplicable to

me. She could hardly have come up for the day to take part

in all this. Perhaps the Templers were again in London

for the week-end, and she had chosen to walk in the pro-

cession as an unusual experience; while Peter had gone off

to amuse himself elsewhere. Then all at once the thing

came to me in a flash, as such things do, requiring no

further explanation. Mona had left Templer. She was now

living with Quiggin. For some reason this was absolutely

clear. Their relationship was made unmistakable by the

manner in which they moved together side by side.

@'Where are they going?' I asked.

@'To meet some Hunger-Marchers arriving from the Mid-

lands,' said Members, as if it were a foolish, irrelevant ques-

tion. 'They are camping in the park, aren't they?'

@'This crowd?'

@'No, the Hunger-Marchers, of course.'

@'Why is Mona there?'

@'Who is Mona?'

@'The girl walking with Quiggin and helping to push St.

John Clarke. She was a model, you remember. I once saw

you with her at a party years ago.'

@'Oh, yes, it was her, wasn't it?' he said, indifferently.

@Mona's name seemed to mean nothing to him.

@'But why is she helping to push the chair?'.

@'Probably because Quiggin is too bloody lazy to do all the

work himself,' he said.

@Evidently he was ignorant of Mona's subsequent career

since the days when he had known her. The fact that she

was helping to trundle St. John Clarke through the mists of

Hyde Park was natural enough for the sort of girl she had

been. In the eyes of Members she was just another 'arty'

woman roped in by Quiggin to assist Left Wing activities.

His own thoughts were entirely engrossed by St. John

Clarke and Quiggin. I could not help being impressed by

the extent to which the loss of his post as secretary had

upset him. His feelings had undoubtedly been lacerated.

He watched them pass by, his mouth clenched.

@The procession wound up the road towards Marble Arch.

Two policemen on foot brought up the rear, round whom,

whistling shrilly, circled some boys on bicycles, apparently

unconnected with the marchers. The intermittcnt shouting

grew gradually fainter, until the column disappeared from

sight into the upper reaches of the still foggy park.

@Members looked round,at me.

@'Can you beat it?' he said.

@'I thought St. John Clarke disliked girls near him?'

@'I don't expect he cares any longer,' said Members, in a

voice of despair. 'Quiggin will make him put up with any-

thing by now.'

@On this note we parted company. As I continued my way

through the park I was conscious of having witnessed a

spectacle that was distinctly strange. Jean had already told

me more than once that the Templers were getting on

badly. These troubles had begun, so it appeared, a few

months after their marriage,  Mona complaining of the dull-

ness of life away from London. She was for ever making

scenes, usually about nothing at all. Afterwards there would

be tears and reconciliations; and some sort of a 'treat' would

be arranged for her by Peter. Then the cycle would once

more take its course. Jean liked Mona, but thought her

'impossible' as a wife.

@'What is the real trouble?' I had asked.

@'I don't think she likes men.'

@'Ah.'

@'But I don't think she likes women either. Just keen

on herself.'

@'How will it end?'

@'They may settle down. If Peter doesn't lose interest. He

is used to having his own way. He has been unexpectedly

good so far.'

@She was fond of Peter, though free from that obsessive

interest that often entangles brother and sister. They were

not alike in appearance, though her hair, too, grew down

like his in a 'widow's peak' on her forehead. There was

also something about the set of her neck that recalled her

brother. That was all.

@'They might have a lot of children.'

@'They might.'

@'Would that be a good thing?'

@'Certainly.'

@I was surprised that she was so decisive, because in those

days children were rather out of fashion. It always seemed

strange to me, and rather unreal, that so much of her own

time should be occupied with Polly.

@'You know, I believe Mona has taken quite a fancy for

your friend J. G. Quiggin,' she had said, laughing.

@'Not possible.'

@'I'm not so sure.'

@'Has he appeared at the house again?'

@'No--but she keeps talking about him.'

@'Perhaps I ought never to have introduced him into the

household.'

@'Perhaps not,' she had replied, quite seriously.

@At the time, the suggestion had seemed laughable. To

regard Quiggin as a competitor with Templer for a woman

--far less his own wife--was ludicrous even to consider.

@'But she took scarcely any notice of him.'

@'Well, I thought <2you>2 were rather wet the first time you

came to the house. But I've made up for it later, haven't I?'

@'I adored you from the start.'

@'I'm sure you didn't.'

@'Certainly at Stourwater.'

@'Oh, at Stourwater I was very impressed too.'

@'And I with you.'

@'Then why didn't you write or ring up or something?

<2Why didn't you?'>2

@'I did--you were away.'

@'You ought to have gone on trying.'

@'I wasn't sure you weren't rather lesbian.'

@'How ridiculous. Pretty rude of you, too.'

@'I had a lot to put up with.'

@'Nonsense.'

@'But I had.'

@'How absurd you are.'

@When the colour came quickly into her face, the change

used to fill me with excitement. Even when she sat in

silence, scarcely answering if addressed, such moods seemed

a necessary part of her: something not to be utterly

regretted. Her forehead, high and white, gave a withdrawn

look, like a great lady in a medieval triptych or carving;

only her lips, and the elegantly long lashes under slanting

eyes, gave a hint of latent sensuality. But descriptions of a

woman's outward appearance can hardly do more than echo

the terms of a fashion paper. Their nature can be caught

only in a refractive beam, as with light passing through

water: the rays of character focused through the person with

whom they are intimately associated. Perhaps, therefore, I

alone was responsible for what she seemed to me. To

another man--Duport, for example--she no doubt appeared

--indeed, actually was--a different woman.

@'But why, when we first met, did you never talk about

books and things?' I had asked her.

@'I didn't think you'd understand.'

@'How hopeless of you.'

@'Now I see it was,' she had said, quite humbly.

@She shared with her brother the conviction that she

'belonged' in no particular world. The other guests she had

found collected round Sir Magnus Donners at Stourwater

had been on the whole unsympathetic.

@'I only went because I was a friend of Baby's,' she had

said; 'I don't really like people of that sort.'

@'But surely there were people of all sorts there?'

@'Perhaps I don't much like people anyway. I am probably

too lazy. They always want to sleep with one, or some-

thing.'

@'But that is like me.'

@'I know. It's intolerable.'

@We laughed, but I had felt the chill of sudden jealousy;

the fear that her remark had been made deliberately to

tease.

@'Of course Baby loves it all,' she went on. 'The men hum

round her like bees. She is so funny with them.'

@'What did she and Sir Magnus do?'

@'Not even I know. Whatever it was, Bijou Ardglass

refused to take him on.'

@'She was offered the job?'

@'So I was told. She preferred to go off with Bob.'

@'Why did that stop?'

@'Bob could no longer support her in the style to which

she was accustomed--or rather the style to which she was

unaccustomed, as Jumbo Ardglass never had much money.'

@It was impossible, as ever, to tell from her tone what she

felt about Duport. I wondered whether she would leave

him and marry me. I had not asked her, and had no

like Lady Ardglass, she would not be supported in the style

to which she had been accustomed. Neither, for that matter,

would Mona, if she had indeed gone off with Quiggin, for I

felt sure that the final domestic upheaval at the Templers'

had now taken place. Jean had been right. Something

about the way Quiggin and Mona walked beside one

another connected them inexorably together. 'Women can

be immensely obtuse about all kinds of things,' Barnby was

fond of saying, 'but where the emotions are concerned their

opinion is always worthy of consideration.'

@The mist was lifting now, gleams of sunlight once

more coming through the clouds above the waters of

the Serpentine. Not unwillingly dismissing the financial

side of marriage from my mind, as I walked on through

the melancholy park, I thought of love, which, from the

very beginning perpetually changes its shape: sometimes in

the ascendant, sometimes in decline. At present we sailed

in compamtively calm seas because we lived from meeting

to meeting, possessing no plan for the future. Her abandon-

ment remained; the abandonment that had so much sur-

prised me at that first embrace, as the car skimmed the

muddy surfaces of the Great West Road.

@But in love, like everything else--more than anything

else--there must be bad as well as good; and by silence or

some trivial remark she could inflict unexpected pain. Away

from her, all activities seemed waste of time, yet sometimes

just before seeing her I was aware of an odd sense of

antagonism that had taken the place of the longing that had

been in my heart for days before. This sense of being out

of key with her sometimes survived the first minutes of our

meeting. Then, all at once, tension would be relaxed;

always, so it seemed to me, by some mysterious force

emanating from her: intangible, invisible, yet at the same

time part of a whole principle of behaviour: a deliberate act

of the will by which she exercised power. At times it was

almost as if she intended me to feel that unexpected

accident, rather than a carefully arranged plan, had brought

us together on some given occasion; or at least that I must

always be prepared for such a mood. Perhaps these are

inward irritations always produced by love: the acutely

sensitive nerves of intimacy: the haunting fear that all may

not go well.

@Still thinking of such things, I rang the bell of the ground-

floor flat. It was in an old-fashioned red-brick block of

buildings, situated somewhere beyond Rutland Gate, con-

cealed among obscure turnings that seemed to lead nowhere,

For some time there was no answer to the ring. I waited,

peering through the frosted glass of the front door, feeling

every second an eternity. Then the door opened a few

inches and Jean looked out. I saw her face only for a

moment. She was laughing.

@'Come in,' she said quickly. 'It's cold.'

@As I entered the hall, closing the door behind me, she

ran back along the passage. I saw that she wore nothing

but a pair of slippers.

@'There is a fire in here,' she called from the sitting-room.

@I hung my hat on the grotesque piece of furniture,

designed for that use, that stood by the door. Then I

followed hcr down the passage and into the room. The

furniture and decoration of the flat were of an appalling

banality.

@'Why are you wearing no clothes?'

@'Are you shocked?'

@'Wha't do you think?'

@'I think you are.'

@'Surprised, rather than shocked.'

@'To make up for the formality of our last meeting.'

@'Aren't I showing my appreciation?'

@'Yes, but you must not be so conventional.'

@'But if it had been the postman?'

@'I could have seen through the glass.'

@'He, too, perhaps.'

@'I had a dressing-gown handy.'

@'It was a kind thought, anyway.'

@'You like it?'

@'Very much.'

@'Tell me something nice.'

@'This style suits you.'

@'Not too <2outr*'e?'>2

@'On the contrary.'

@'Is this how you like me?'

@'Just like this.'

@There is, after all, no pleasure like that given by a woman

who really wants to see you. Here, at last, was some real

escape from the world. The calculated anonymity of the

surroundings somehow increased the sense of being alone

with her. There was no sound except her sharp intake of

breath. Yet love, for all the escape it offers, is closely linked

with everyday things, even with the affairs of others. I

knew Jean would burn with curiosity when I told her of

the procession in the park. At the same time, because

passion in its transcendence cannot be shared with any other

element, I could not speak of what had happened until the

time had come to decide where to dine.

@She was pulling on her stockings when I told her. She

gave a little cry, indicating disbelief.

@'After all, you were the first to suggest something was

"on" between them.'

@'But she would be insane to leave Peter.'

@We discussed this. The act of marching in a political

demonstration did not, in itself, strike her as particularly

unexpected in Mona. She said that Mona always longed
 take part in anything that drew attention to herself.

Jean was unwilling to believe that pushing St. John Clarke's

chair was the outward sign of a decisive step in joining

Quiggin.

@'She must have done it because Peter is away. It is exactly

the kind of thing that would appeal to her. Besides, it

would annoy him just the right amount. A little, but not

too much.'

@'Where is Peter?'

@'Spending the week-end with business friends. Mona

thought them too boring to visit.'

@'Perhaps she was just having a day out, then. Even so,

it confirms your view that Quiggin made a hit with her.'

@She pulled on the other stocking.

@'True, they had a splitting row just before Peter left

home,' she said. 'You know, I almost believe you are right.'

@'Put a call through.'

@'Just to see what the form is?'

@'Why not?'

@'Shall I?'

@She was undecided.

@'I think I will,' she said at last.

@Still only partly dressed, she took up the telephone and

lay on the sofa. At the other end of the line the bell rang

for some little time before there was an answer. Then a

voice spoke from the Templers' house. Jean made some

trivial enquiry. A short conversation followed. I saw from

her face that my guess had been somewhere near the mark.

She hung up the receiver.

@'Mona left the house yesterday, saying she did not know

when she would be back. She took a fair amount of

luggage and left no address. I think the Burdens believe

something is up. Mrs. Burden told me Peter had rung up

about something he had forgotten. She told him Mona

had left unexpectedly.

@'She may be taking a few days off.'

@'I don't think so,' said Jean.

@Barnby used to say: 'All women are stimulated by the

news that any wife has left any husband.' Certainly I was

aware that the emotional atmosphere in the room had

changed. Perhaps I should have waited longer before tell-

ing her my story. Yet to postpone the information further

was scarcely possible without appearing deliberately

secretive. I have often pondered on the conversation that

followed, without coming to any definite conclusion as to

why things took the course they did.

@We had gone on to talk of the week-end when Quiggin

had been first invited to the Templers' house. I had re-

marked something to the effect that if Mona had really left

for good, the subject would have been apt for one of Mrs.

Erdleigh's prophecies. In saying this I had added some

more or less derogatory remark about Jimmy Stripling.

Suddenly I was aware that Jean was displeased with my

words. Her face took on a look of vexation. I supposed

that some out-of-the-way loyalty had for some reason made

her take exception to the idea of laughing at her sister's

ex-husband. I could not imagine why this should be, since

Stripling was usually regarded in the Templer household

as an object of almost perpetual derision.

@'I know he isn't <2intelligent,'>2 she said.

@'Intelligence isn't everything,' I said, trying to pass the

matter off lightly. 'Look at the people in the Cabinet.'

@'You said the other day that you found it awfully difficult

to get on with people who were not intelligent.'

@'I only meant where writing was concerned.'

@'It didn't sound like that.'

@A woman's power of imitation and adaptation make her

capable of confronting you with your own arguments after

even the briefest acquaintance: how much more so if a

state of intimacy exists. I saw that we were about to

find ourselves in deep water. She pursed her lips and

looked away. I thought she was going to cry. I could not

imagine what had gone wrong and began to feel that

terrible sense of exhaustion that descends, when, without

cause or warning, an unavoidable, meaningless quarrel

develops with someone you love. Now there seemed no way

out. To lavish excessive praise on Jimmy Stripling's in-

tellectual attainments would not be accepted, might even

sound satirical; on the other hand, to remain silent would

seem to confirm my undoubtedly low opinion of his

capabilities in that direction. There was also, of course, the

more general implication of her remark, the suggestion of

protest against a state of mind in which intellectual qualitics

were automatically put first. Dissent from this principle

was, after all, reasonable enough, though not exactly an

equitable weapon in Jean's hands, for she, as much as any-

one--so it seemed to me as her lover--was dependent, in

the last resort, on people who were 'intelligent' in the sense

in which she used the word.

@Perhaps it was foolish to pursue the point of what was

to all appearances only an irritable remark. But the cir-

cumstances were of a kind when irritating remarks are

particularly to be avoided. Otherwise, it would have been

easier to find an excuse.

@Often enough, women love the arts and those who

practice them; but they possess also a kind of jealousy of

those activities. They like wit, but hate analysis. They are

always prepared to fall back upon traditional rather than

intellectual defensive positions.  We never talked of Duport,

as I have already recorded, and I scarcely knew, even then,

why she had married him; but married they were. Accord-

ingly, it seemed to me possible that what she had said

possessed reference, in some oblique manner, to her

husband; in the sense that adverse criticism of this kind cast

a reflection upon him, and consequently upon herself. I had

said nothing of Duport (who, as I was to discover years

later, had a deep respect for 'intelligence'), but the possibility

was something to be taken into account.
 was quite wrong in this surmise, and, even then, did

not realise the seriousness of the situation; certainly was

wholly unprepared for what happened next. A moment

later, for no apparent reason, she told me she had had a

love affair with Jimmy Stripling.

@'When?'

@'After Babs left him,' she said.

@She went white, as if she might be about to faint. I was

myself overcome with a horrible feeling of nausea, as if one

had suddenly woken from sleep and found oneself chained

to a corpse. A desire to separate myself physically from

her and the place we were in was linked with an over-

whelming sensation that, more than ever, I wanted her for

myself. To think of her as wife of Bob Duport was bad

enough, but that she should also have been mistress of

Jimmy Stripling was barely endurable. Yet it was hard to

know how to frame a complaint regarding that matter even

to myself. She had not been 'unfaithful' to me. This odious

thing had happened at a time when I myself had no claim

whatsoever over her. I tried to tranquillise myself by con-

sidering whether a liaison with some man, otherwise

possible to like or admire, would have been preferable. In

the face of such an alternative, I decided Stripling was on

the whole better as he was: with all the nightmarish fantasies

implicit in the situation. The mystery remained why she

should choose that particular moment to reveal this experi-

ence of hers, making of it a kind of defiance.

@When you are in love with someone, their life, past,

present and future, becomes in a curious way part of your

life; and yet, at the same time, since two separate human

entities in fact remain, you merely carry your own

prejudices into another person's imagined existence; not

even into their 'real' existence, because only they themselves

can estimate what their 'real' existence has been. Indeed,

the situation might be compared with that to be experienced

in due course in the army where an officer is responsible

for the conduct of troops stationed at a post too distant

from him for the exercise of any effective control.

@Not only was it painful enough to think of Jean giving

herself to another man; the pain was intensified by sup-

posing--what was, of course, not possible--that Stripling

must appear to her in the same terms that he appeared to

me. Yet clearly she had, once, at least, looked at Stripling
ith quite different eyes, or such a situation could never

have arisen. Therefore, seeing Stripling as a man for whom

it was evidently possible to feel at the very least a passing

<2tendresse>2--perhaps even love--this incident, unforgettably

horrible as it seemed to me at the time, would more

rationally be regarded as a mere error of judgment. In love,

however, there is no rationality. Besides, that she had

seen him with other eyes than mine made things worse.

In such ways one is bound, inescapably, to the actions of

others.

@We finished dressing in silence. By that time it was fairly

late. I felt at once hungry, and without any true desire for

food.

@'Where shall we go?'

@'Anywhere you like.'

@'But where would you like to go?'

@'I don't care.'

@'We could have a sandwich at Foppa's.'

@'The club?'

@'Yes'

@'All right.'

@In the street she slipped her arm through mine. I looked,

and saw that she was crying a little, but I was no nearer

understanding her earlier motives. The only thing clear

was that some sharp change had taken place in the kaleido-

scope of our connected emotions. In the pattern left by this

transmutation of coloured crystals an increased intimacy

had possibly emerged. Perhaps that was something she had

intended.

@'I suppose I should not have told you.'

@'It would have come out sooner or later.'

@'But not just then.'

@'Perhaps not.'

@Still, in spite of it all, as we drove through dingy Soho

streets, her head resting on my shoulder, I felt glad she

still seemed to belong to me. Foppa's was open. That was

a relief, for there was sometimes an intermediate period

when the restaurant was closed down and the club had not

yet come into active being. We climbed the narrow stair-

case, over which brooded a peculiarly Italian smell: mine-

strone: salad oil: stale tobacco: perhaps a faint reminder of

the lotion Foppa used on his hair.

@Barnby had first introduced me to Foppa's club a long

time before. One of the merits of the place was that no

one either of us knew ever went there. It was a single room

over Foppa's Restaurant. In theory the club opened only

after the restaurant had shut for the night, but in practice

Foppa himself, sometimes feeling understandably bored

with his customers, would retire upstairs to read the paper,

or practise billiard strokes. On such occasions he was glad

of company at an earlier hour than was customary.

Alternatively, he would sometimes go off with his friends to

another haunt of theirs, leaving a notice on the door, written

in indelible pencil, saying that Foppa's Club was temporarily

closed for cleaning.

@There was a narrow window at the far end of this small,

smoky apartment; a bar in one corner, and a table for the

game of Russian billiards in the other. The walls were

white and bare, the vermouth bottles above the little bar

shining out in bright stripes of colour that seemed to form

a kind of spectrum in red, white and green. These patriotic

colours linked the aperitifs and liqueurs with the portrait

of Victor Emmanuel II which hung over the mantelpiece.

Surrounded by a wreath of laurel, the King of Sardinia and

United Italy wore a wasp-waisted military frock-coat

swagged with coils of yellow aiguillette. The bold treat-

mcnt of his costume by the artist almost suggested a Bakst

design for one of the early Russian ballets.

@If Foppa himself had grown his moustache to the same

enormous length, and added an imperial to his chin, he

would have looked remarkably like the <2re galantuomo;>2 with

just that same air of royal amusement that anyone could

possibly take seriously--even for a moment--the pre-

posterous world in which we are fated to have our being.

Hanging over the elaborately gilded frame of this coloured

print was the beautiful Miss Foppa's black fez-like cap,

which she possessed by virtue of belonging to some local,

parochial branch of the Fascist Party; though her father

was believed to be at best only a lukewarm supporter of

Mussolini's r*'egime. Foppa had lived in London for many

years. He had even served as a cook during the war with

a British light infantry regiment; but he had never taken

out papers of naturalisation.

@'Look at me,' he used to say, when the subject arose, 'I

am not an Englishman. You see.'

@The truth of that assertion was undeniable. Foppa was

not an Englishman. He did not usually express political

opinions in the presence of his customers, but he had once,

quite exceptionally, indicated to me a newspaper photo-

graph of the Duce declaiming from the balcony of the

Palazzo Venezia. That was as near as he had ever gone

to stating his view. It was sufficient. Merely by varying in

no way his habitual expression of tolerant amusement,

Foppa had managed to convey his total lack of anything

that could possibly be accepted as Fascist enthusiasm. All

the same, I think he had no objection to his daughter's

association with that or any other party which might be

in power at the moment.

@Foppa was decidedly short, always exquisitely dressed in

a neat suit, blue or brown, his tiny feet encased in

excruciatingly tight shoes of light tan shade. The shoes

were sharply pointed and polished to form dazzling high-

lights. In summer he varied his footgear by sporting white

brogues picked out in snakeskin. He was a great gambler,

and sometimes spent his week-ends taking part in trotting

races somewhere not far from London, perhaps at Green-

ford in Middlesex. Hanging behind the bar was a framed

photograph of himself competing in one of these trotting

events, armed with a long whip, wearing a jockey cap, his

small person almost hidden between the tail of his horse

and the giant wheels of the sulky. The snapshot recalled

a design of Degas or Guys. That was the world, %aesthetically

speaking, to which Foppa belonged. He was a man of great

good nature and independence, who could not curb his

taste for gambling for high stakes; a passion that brought

him finally, I believe, into difficulties.

@Jean and I had already been to the club several times,

because she liked playing Russian billiards, a game at which

she was extremely proficient. Sixpence in the slot of the

table brought to the surface the white balls and the red.

After a quarter of an hour the balls no longer reappeared

for play, vanishing one by one, while scores were doubled.

Foppa approved of Jean. Her skill at billiards was a per-

petual surprise and delight to him.

@'He probably tells all his friends I'm his mistress,' she

used to say.

@She may have been right in supposing that; though I

suspect, if he told any such stories, that Foppa would

probably have boasted of some enormous lady, at least

twice his own size, conceived in the manner of Jordaens.

His turn of humour always suggested something of that sort.

@I thought the club might be a good place to recover some

sort of composure. The room was never very full, though

sometimes there would be a party of three or four playing

cards gravely at one of the tables in the corner. On that

particular evening Foppa himself was engrossed in a two-

handed game, perhaps piquet. Sitting opposite him, his

back to the room, was a man of whom nothing could be

seen but a brown check suit and a smoothly brushed head,

greying and a trifle bald at the crown. Foppa rose at once,

poured out Chianti for us, and shouted down the service

hatch for sandwiches to be cut. Although the cook was

believed to be a Cypriot, the traditional phrase for attracting

his attention was always formulated in French.

@'L*!a bas]' Foppa would intone liturgically, as he leant for-

ward into the abyss that reached down towards the kitchen,

'L*!a bas]'

@Perhaps Miss Foppa herself attended to the provision of

food in the evenings. If so, she never appeared in the club.

Her quiet, melancholy beauty would have ornamented the

place. I had, indeed, never seen any woman but Jean in

that room. No doubt the client*!ele would have objected to

the presence there of any lady not cntirely removed from

their own daily life.

@Two Soho Italians were standing by the bar.  One, a tall,

sallow, mournful character, resembling a former ambassador

fallen on evil days, smoked a short, stinking cigar. The

other, a nondescript ruffian, smaller in size than his com-

panion, though also with a certain air of authority, dis-

played a suggestion of side-whisker under his faun velour

hat. He was picking his teeth pensively with one of the

toothpicks supplied in tissue paper at the bar. Both were

probably neighbouring head-waiters. The two of them

watched Jean slide the cue gently between finger and thumb

before making her first shot. The ambassadorial one

removed the cigar from his mouth and, turning his head

a fraction, remarked sententiously through almost closed

lips:

@'Bella posizione.'

@'E in gamba,' agreed the other.  'Una fuori classe davvero.'

@The evening was happier now, though still something

might easily go wrong.  There was no certainty.  People are

differently equipped for withstanding emotional discomfort.

On the whole women can bear a good deal of that kind of

strain without apparently undue inconvenience. The game

was won by Jean.

@'What about another one?'

@We asked the Italians if they were waiting for the billiard

table, but thcy did not want to play.  We had just arranged

the balls again, and set up the pin, when the door of the

club opened and two people came into the room. One of

them was Barnby. The girl with him was known to me,

though it was a second before I remembered that she was

Lady Anne Stepney. We had not met for three years or

more. Barnby seemed surprised, perhaps not altogether

pleased, to find someone he knew at Foppa's.

@Although it had turned out that Anne Stepney was the

girl he had met on the train after his week-end with the

Manasches, he had ceased to speak of her freely in conversa-

tion. At the same time I knew he was still seeing her. This

was on account of a casual word dropped by him. I had

never before run across them together in public. Some

weeks after his first mention of her, I had asked whether he

had finally established her identity. Barnby had replied

brusquely:

@'Of course her name is Stepney.'

@I sometimes wondered how the two of them were getting

along; even whether they had plans for marriage. A year

was a long time for Barnby to be occupied with one woman.

Like most men of his temperament, he held,-on the whole,

rather strict views regarding other people's morals. For

that reason alone he would probably not have approved had

I told him about Jean. In any case he was not greatly

interested in such things unless himself involved. He only

knew that something of the sort was in progress, and he

would have had no desire, could it have been avoided, to

come upon us unexpectedly in this manner.

@The only change in Anne Stepney (last seen at

Stringham's wedding) was her adoption of a style of dress

implicitly suggesting an art student; nothing outrageous:

just a general assertion that she was in some way closely

connected with painting or sculpture. I think Mona had

struggled against such an appearance; in Anne Stepney, it

had no doubt been painfully acquired. Clothes of that sort

certainly suited her large dark eyes and reddish hair, seem-

ing also appropriate to a general air of untidiness, not to

say grubbiness, that always possessed her. She had by then,

I knew, passed almost completely from the world in which

she had been brought up; that in which her sister, Peggy,

still moved, or, at least, in that portion of it frequented by

young married women.

@The Bridgnorths had taken their younger daughter's

behaviour philosophically. They had gone through all the

normal processes of giving her a start in life, a ball for her

'coming out', and everything else to be reasonably expected

of parents in the circumstances. In the end they had agreed

that 'in these days' it was impossible to insist on the hopes

or standards of their own generation. Anne had been

allowed to go her own way, while Lady Bridgnorth had

returned to her hospital committees, Lord Bridgnorth

to his politics and racing. They had probably contented

themselves with the thought that Peggy, having quietly

divorced Stringham, had now settled down peacefully

enough with her new husband in his haunted, Palladian

Yorkshire home, which was said to have given St. John

Clarke the background for a novel. Besides, their eldest

son, Mountfichet, I had been told, was turning out well at

the university, where he was a great favourite with Sillery.

@When introductions took place, it seemed simpler to

make no reference to the fact that we had met before. Anne

Stepney stared round the room with severe approval.

Indicating Foppa and his companion, she remarked:

@'I always think people playing cards make such a good

pattern.'

@'Rather like a Chardin,' I suggested.

@'Do you think so?' she replied, implying contradiction

rather than agreement.

@'The composition?'

@'You know I am really only interested in Chardin's high-

lights,' she said.

@Before we could pursue the intricacies of Chardin's tech-

nique further, Foppa rose to supply further drinks. He

had already made a sign of apology at his delay in doing

this, to be accounted for by the fact that his game was on

the point of completion when Barnby arrived. He now

noted the score on a piece of paper and came towards us.

He was followed this time to the bar by the man with

whom he had been at cards.  Foppa's companion could now

be seen more clearly. His suit was better cut and general

appearance more distinguished than was usual in the club.

He had stood by the table for a moment, stretching himself

and lighting a cigarette, while he regarded our group. A

moment later, taking a step towards Anne Stepney, he said

in a soft, purring, rather humorous voice, with something

almost hypnotic about its tone:

@'I heard your name when you were introduced. You must

be Eddie Bridgnorth's daughter.'

@Looking at him more closely as he said this, I was sur-

prised that he had remained almost unobserved until that

moment. He was no ordinary person. That was clear. Of

medium height, even rather small when not compared with

Foppa, he was slim, with that indefinably 'horsey' look that

seems even to affect the texture of the skin. His age was

hard to guess: probably he was in his forties. He was very

trim in his clothes. They were old, neat, well preserved

clothes, a little like those worn by Uncle Giles. This man

gave the impression of having handled large sums of money

in his time, although he did not convey any presumption of

affluence at that particular moment. He was clean-shaven,

and wore a hard collar and Brigade of Guards tie. I could

not imagine what someone of that sort was doing at

Foppa's. There was something about him of Buster Foxe,

third husband of Stringham's mother : the same cool, tough,

socially elegant personality, though far more genial than

Buster's. He lacked, too, that carapace of professional

egotism acquired in boyhood that envelops protectively even

the most good-humoured naval officer. Perhaps the similarity

to Buster was after all only the outer veneer acquired by all

people of the same generation.

@Anne Stepney replied rather stiffly to this enquiry, that

'Eddie Bridgnorth' was indeed her father. Having decided

to throw in her lot so uncompromisingly with 'artists', she

may have felt put out to find herself confronted in such a

place by someone of this kind. Since he claimed acquaint'

ance with Lord Bridgnorth, there was no knowing what

information he might possess about herself; nor what he

might report subsequently if he saw her father again. How-

ever, the man in the Guards tie seemed instinctively to

understand what her feelings would be on learning that he

knew her family.

@'I am Dicky Umfraville,' he said. 'I don't expect you have

ever heard of me, because I have been away from this

country for so long. I used to see something of your father

when he owned Yellow Jack. In fact I won a whole heap

of money on that horse once. None of it left now, I regret

to say.'

@He smiled gently. By the confidence, and at the same

time the modesty, of his manner he managed to impart

an extraordinary sense of reassurance. Anne Stepney

seemed hardly to know what to say in answer to this

account of himself. I remembered hearing Sillery speak of

Umfraville, when I was an undergraduate. Perhaps

facetiously, he had told Stringham that Umfraville was a

man to beware of. That had been apropos of Stringham's

father, and life in Kenya. Stringham himself had met

Umfraville in Kenya, and spoke of him as a well-known

gentleman-rider. I also remembered Stringham complain-

ing that Le Bas had once mistaken him for Umfraville, who

had been at Le Bas's house at least fifteen years earlier.

Now, in spite of the difference in age and appearance, I

could see that Le Bas's error had been due to something

more than the habitual vagueness of schoolmasters. The

similariry between Stringham and Umfraville was of a

moral rather than physical sort. The same dissatisfaction

with life and basic melancholy gave a resemblance, though

Umfraville's features and expression were more formalised

and, in some manner, coarser--perhaps they could even be

called more brutal--than Stringham's.

@There was something else about Umfraville that struck
me, a characteristic I had noticed in other people of his age.

He seemed still young, a person like oneself; and yet at thc

same time his appearance and manner proclaimed that he

had had time to live at least a few years of his grown-up

life before the outbreak of war in 1914.  Once I had thought

of those who had known the epoch of my own childhood

as 'older people'. Then I had found there existed people like

Umfraville who seemed somehow to span the gap. They

partook of both eras, specially forming the tone of the post-

war years; much more so, indeed, than the younger people.

Most of them, like Umfraville, were melancholy; perhaps

from the strain of living simultaneously in two different

historical periods. That was his category, certainly. He

continued now to address himself to Anne Stepney.

@'Do you ever go to trotting races?'

@'No.'

@She looked very surprised at the question.

@'I thought not,' he said, laughing at her astonishment. 'I

became interested when I was in the States.  The Yanks are

very keen on trotting races. So are the French. In this

country no one much ever seems to go, However, I met

Foppa, here, down at Greenford the other day and we got

on so well that we arranged to go to Caversham together.

The next thing is I find myself playing piquet with him in

his own joint.'

@Foppa laughed at this account of the birth of their friend-

ship, and rubbed his hands together.

@'You had all the, luck tonight, Mr. Umfraville,' he said,

'Next time I have my revenge.'

@'Certainly, Foppa, certainly,'

@However, in spite of the way the cards had fallen, Foppa

seemed pleased to have Umfraville in the club. Later, I

found that one of Umfraville's most fortunate gifts was a

capacity to take money off people without causing offence.

@A moment or two of general conversation followed in

which it turned out that Jean had met Barnby on one of

his visits to Stourwater. She knew, of course, about his

former connection with Baby Wentworth, but when we

had talked of this together, she had been uncertain whether

or not they had ever stayed with Sir Magnus Donners at

the same time. They began to discuss the week-end during

which both had been in the same large house-party.

Anne Stepney, possibly to avoid a further immediate impact

with Umfraville before deciding how best to treat him,

crossed the room to examine Victor Emmanuel's picture.

Umfraville and I were, accordingly, left together. I asked

if he remembered Stringham in Kenya.

@'Charles Stringham?' he said. 'Yes, of course I knew

him. Boffles Stringham's son. A very nice boy. But wasn't

he married to <2her>2 sister?'

@He lowered his voice, and jerked his head in Anne's

direction.

@'They are divorced now.'

@'Of course they are. I forgot. As a matter of fact I heard

Charles was in rather a bad way. Drinking enough to float

a battleship. Of course, Boffles likes his liquor hard, too.

Have you known Charles long?'

@'We were at the same house at school--Le Bas's.'

@'Not possible.'

@'Why not?'

@'Because I was at Le Bas's too. Not for very long. I

started at Corderey's. Then Corderey's house was taken

over by Le Bas. I was asked to leave quite soon after that--

not actually sacked, as is sometimes maliciously stated by

my friends.  I get invited to Old Boy dinners, for example.

Not that I ever go.  Usually out of England.  As a matter of

fact I might go this year. What about you?'

@'I might. I haven't been myself for a year or two.'

@'Do come. We'll make up a party and raise hell. Tear

Claridge's in half. That's where they hold it, isn't it?'

@'Or the Ritz.'

@'You must come.'

@There was a suggestion of madness in the way he shot

out his sentences; not the kind of madness that was raving,

nor even, in the ordinary sense, dangerous; but a warning

that no proper mechanism existed for operating normal

controls. At the same time there was also something

impelling about his friendliness: this sudden decision that

we must attend the Old Boy dinner together. Even though

I knew fairly well--at least flattered myself I knew well--

the type of man he was, I could not help being pleased by

the invitation.  Certainly, I made up my mind immediately

that I would go to the Le Bas dinner, upon which I was

far from decided before. In fact, it would be true to say

that Umfraville had completely won me over; no doubt by

the shock tactics against which Sillery had issued his

original warning. In such matters, though he might often

talk nonsense, Sillery possessed a strong foundation of

shrewdness. People who disregarded his admonitions some-

times lived to regret it.

@'Do you often come here?' Umfraville asked.

@'Once in a way--to play Russian billiards.'

@'Tell me the name of that other charming girl.'

@'Jean Duport.'

@'Anything to do with the fellow who keeps company with

Bijou Ardglass?'

@'Wife.'

@'Dear me.  How eccentric of him with something so nice

at home. Anne, over there, is a dear little thing, too. Bit

of a handful, I hear. Fancy her being grown up. Only

seems the other day I read the announcement of her birth.

Wouldn't mind taking her out to dinner one day, if I had

the price of a dinner on me.'

@'Do you live permanently in Kenya?'

@'Did for a time. Got rather tired of it lately. Isn't what

it was in the early days.  But, you know, something seems

to have gone badly wrong with this country too. It's quite

different from when I was over here two or three years

ago. Then there was a party every night--two or three, as

a matter of fact. Now all that is changed. No parties, no

gaiety, everyone talking in a dreadfully serious manner

about economics or world disarmament or something of

the sort. That was why I was glad to come here and take a

hand with Foppa. No nonsense about economics or world

disarmament with him.  All the people I know have become

so damned serious, what?  Don't you find that yourself?'

@'It's the slump.'

@Umfraville's face had taken on a strained, worried

expression while he was saying this, almost the countenance

of a priest preaching a gospel of pleasure to a congrega-

tion now fallen away from the high standards of the past.

There was a look of hopelessness in his eyes, as if he knew

of the terrible odds against him, the martyrdom that

would be his final crown. At that moment he again

reminded me, for some reason, of Buster Foxe.  I had never

heard Buster express such opinions, though in general they

were at that time voiced commonly enough.

@'Anyway, it's nice to find all of you here,' he said. 'Let's

have another drink.'

@Barnby and Anne Stepney now began to play billiards

together. They seemed not on the best of terms, and had

perhaps had some sort of a quarrel earlier in the evening.

If Mrs. Erdleigh had been able to examine the astrological

potentialities of that day she would perhaps have warned

groups of lovers that the aspects were ominous. Jean came

across to the bar. She took my arm, as if she wished to

emphasise to Umfraville that we were on the closest terms.

This was in spite of the fact that she herself was always

advocating discretion. All the same, I felt delighted and

warmed by her touch. Umfraville smiled, almost paternally,

as if he felt that here at least he could detect on our part

some hope of a pursuit of pleasure. He showed no dis-

position to return to his game with Foppa, now chatting

with the two Italians.

@'Charles Stringham was mixed up with Milly Andriadis

at one moment, wasn't he?' Umfraville asked.

@'About three years ago--just before his marriage.'

@'I think it was just starting when I was last in London.

Don't expect that really did him any good. Milly has got

a way of exhausting chaps, no matter who they are. Even

her Crowned Heads. They can't stand it after a bit. I

remember one friend of mine had to take a voyage round

the world to recover. He got D.T.s in Hongkong. Thought

he was being hunted by naked women riding on unicorns.

What's happened to Milly now?'

@'I only met her once--at a party Charles took me to.'

@'Why don't we all go and see her?'

@'I don't think any of us really know her.'

@'But I couldn't know her better.'

@'Where does she live?'

@'Where's the telephone book?' said Umfraville.  'Though

I don't expect she will be in England at this time of year.'

@He moved away, lost in thought, and disappeared

through the door. It occurred to me that he was pretty

drunk, but at the same time I was not sure. Equally possible

was the supposition that this was his first drink of the

evening. The mystery surrounded him that belongs

especially to strong characters who have only pottered about

in life. Jean slipped her hand in mine.

@'Who is he?'

@I tried to explain to her who Umfraville was.

@'I am enjoying myself,' she said.

@'Are you?'

@I could not be quite sure whether I was enjoying myself

or not. We watched the other two playing billiards. The

game was evidently war to the knife. They were evenly

matched.  There could be no doubt now that there had been

some sort of disagreement between them before their arrival

at Foppa's. Perhaps all girls were in a difficult mood that

night.

@'I've often heard of Umfraville,' said Barnby, chalking

his cue.  'Didn't he take two women to St. Moritz one year,

and get fed up with them, and left them there to pay the

hotel bill?'

@'Who is he married to now?' Anne Stepney asked.

@'Free as air at the moment, I believe,' said Barnby. 'He

has had several wives--three at least.  One of them poisoned

herself. Another left him for a marquess--and almost

immediately eloped again with a jockey. What happened

to the third I can't remember. Your shot, my dear.'

@Umfraville returned to the room.  He watched the com-

pletion of the game in silence. It was won by Barnby. Then

he spoke.

@'I have a proposition to make,' he said.  'I got on to Milly

Andriadis just now on the telephone and told her we were

all coming round to see her.'

@My first thought was that I must not make a habit of

arriving with a gang of friends at Mrs. Andriadis's house

as an uninvited guest; even at intervals of three or four

years. A moment later I saw the absurdity of such

diffidence, because, apart from any other consideration, she

would not have the faintest remembrance of ever having

met me before. At the same time, I could not inwardly

disregard the pattern of life which caused Dicky Umfraville

not only to resemble Stringham, but also, by this vicarious

invitation, to re-enact Stringham's past behaviour.

@'What is this suggestion?' enquired Anne Stepney.

@She spoke coldly, but I think Umfraville had already

thoroughly aroused her interest. At any rate her eyes

reflected that rather puzzled look that in women is some-

times the prelude to an inclination for the man on whom

it is directed.

@'Someone called Mrs. Andriadis,' said Umfraville. 'She

has been giving parties since you were so high. Rather a

famous lady. A very old friend of mine. I thought we

might go round and see her. I rang her up just now and

she can't wait to welcome us.'

@'Oh, do let's go,' said Anne Stepney, suddenly abandon-

ing her bored, listless tone. 'I've always longed to meet Mrs.

Andriadis. Wasn't she some king's misytess--was it--'

@'It was,' said Umfraville.

@'I've heard so many stories of the wonderful parties she

gives.'

@Umfraville stepped forward and took her hand. 'Your

ladyship wishes to come,' he said softly, as if playing the

part of a courtier in some ludicrously mannered ceremonial.

'We go, then. Yours to command.'

@He bent his head over the tips of her fingers. I could

not see whether his lips actually touched them, but the

burlesque was for some reason extraordinarily funny, so

that we all laughed. Yet, although absurd, Umfraville's

gesture had also a kind of grace which clearly pleased and

flattered Anne Stepney. She evcn blushed a little. Although

he laughed with the rest of us, I saw that Barnby was a trifle

put out, as indeed most men would have been in the cir-

cumstances. He had certainly recognised Umfraville as a

rival with a technique entirely different from his own. I

looked across to Jean to see if she wanted to join the

expedition. She nodded quickly and smiled.  All at once

things were going all right again between us.

@'I've only met Mrs. Andriadis a couple of times,' said

Barnby. 'But we got on very well on both occasions--in

fact she bought a drawing. I suppose she won't mind such

a large crowd?'

@'Mind?' said Umfraville. 'My dear old boy, Milly will

be tickled to death. Come along. We can all squeeze into

one taxi. Foppa, we shall meet again. You shall have your

revenge.'

@Mrs. Andriadis was, of course, no longer living in the

Duports' house in Hill Street, where Stringham had taken

me to the party. That house had been sold by Duport at

the time of his financial disaster.  She was now installed, so

it appeared, in a large block of flats recently erected in Park

Lane. I was curious to see how her circumstances would

strike me on re-examination. Her party had seemed, at the

time, to reveal a new and fascinating form of life, which

one might never experience again. Such a world now

was not only far less remarkable than formerly, but also

its special characteristics appeared scarcely necessary to seek

in an active manner. Its elements had, indeed, grown up

all round one like strange tropical vegetation: more

luxuriant, it was true, in some directions rather than

others: attractive here, repellent there, but along every

track that could be followed almost equally dense and

imprisoning.

@'She really said she would like to see us?' I asked, as,

tightly packed, we ascended in the lift.

@Umfraville's reply was less assuring than might have been

hoped.

@'She said, "Oh, God, you again, Dicky. Somebody told

me you died of drink in 1929." I said, 'Milly, I'm coming

straight round with a few friends to give you that kiss I

forgot when we were in Havana together.' She said, 'Well,

I hope you'll bring along that pony you owe me, too, which

you forgot at the same time.' So saying, she snapped the

receiver down.'

@'So she has no idea how many we are?'

@'Milly knows I have lots of friends.'

@'All the same--'

@'Don't worry, old boy. Milly will eat you all up.

Especially as you are a friend of Charles.'

@I was, on the contrary, not at all sure that it would be

wise to mention Stringham's name to Mrs. Andriadis.

@We had to sue her after she took our house,' said Jean.

@'Yes, I expect so,' said Umfraville.

@The circumstances of our arrival did not seem specially

favourable in the light of these remarks. We were admitted

to what was evidently a large flat by an elderly lady's-maid,

who had the anxious, authoritative demeanour of a nanny,

or nursery governess, long established in the family.

@'Well, Ethel,' said Umfraville. 'How are you keeping?

Quite a long time since we met.'

@Her face brightened at once when she recognised him.

@'And how are <2you,>2 Mr. Umfraville? Haven't set eyes on

you since the days in Cuba. You look very well indeed,

sir. Where did you get your sunburn?'

@'Not too bad, Ethel. What a time it was in Cuba. And

how is Mrs. A.?'

@'She's been a bit poorly, sir, on and off. Not quite her

own old self. She has her ups and downs.'

@'Which of us doesn't, Ethel? Will she be glad to see me?'

@It seemed rather late in the day to make this enquiry.

Ethel's reply was not immediate. Her face contracted a

trifle as she concentrated her attention upon an entirely

truthful answer to this delicate question.

@'She was pleased when you rang up,' she said. 'Very

pleased.  Called me in and told me, just as she would have

done in the old days.  But then Mr. Guggenb*'uhl telephoned

just after you did, and after that I don't know that she was

so keen. She's changeable, you know. Always was.'

@'Mr. Guggenb*'uhl is the latest, is he?'

@Ethel laughed, with the easy good manners of a trusted

servant whose tact is infinite. She made no attempt to

indicate the identity of Mr. Guggenb*'uhl.

@'What's he like?' Umfraville asked, wheedling in his

manner.

@'He's a German gentleman, sir.'

@'Old, young?  Rich, poor?'

@'He's quite young, sir. Shouldn't say he was specially

wealthy.'

@'One of that kind, is he?' said Umfraville. 'Everybody

seems to have a German boy these days. I feel quite out

of fashion not to have one in tow myself. Does he live

here?'

@'Stays sometimes.'

@'Well, we won't remain long,' said Umfraville. 'I abso-

lutely understand.'

@We followed him through a door, opened by Ethel,

which led into a luxurious rather than comfortable room.

There was an impression of heavy damask curtains and
fringed chair-covers. Furniture and decoration had

evidently been designed in one piece, little or nothing

having been added to the original scheme by the present

owner. A few books and magazines lying on a low table

in Chinese Chippendale seemed strangely out of place; even

more so, a model theatre, like a child's, which stood on a

Louis XVI commode.

@Mrs. Andriadis herself was lying in an armchair, her legs

resting on a pouf. Her features had not changed at all from

the time when I had last seen her. Her powder-grey hair

remained beautifully trim; her dark eyebrows still arched

over very bright brown eyes. She looked as pretty as before,

and as full of energy. She wore no jewellery except a huge

square cut diamond on one finger.

@Her clothes, on the other hand, had undergone a strange

alteration. Her small body was now enveloped in a black

cloak, its velvet collar clipped together at the neck by a

short chain of metal links. The garment suggested an

Italian officer's uniform cloak, which it probably was.

Beneath this military outer covering was a suit of grey

flannel pyjamas, mean in design and much too big for her:

in fact obviously intended for a man. One trouser leg was

rucked up, showing her slim calf and ankle. She did not

rise, but made a movement with her hand to show that she

desired us all to find a place to sit.

@'Well, Dicky,' she said, 'why the hell do you want to

bring a crowd of people to see me at this time of night?'

@She spoke dryly, though without bad temper, in that dis,

tinctly cockney drawl that I remembered.

@'Milly, darling, they are all the most charming people

imaginable. Let me tell you who they are.'

@Mrs. Andriadis laughed.

@'I know <2him,'>2 she said, nodding in the direction of

Barnby.

@'Lady Anne Stepney,' said Umfraville. 'Do you remember

when we went in her father's party to the St. Leger?'

@'You'd better not say anything about <2that,'>2 said Mrs.

Andriadis. 'Eddie Bridgnorth has become a pillar of

respectability. How is your sister, Anne? I'm not surprised

she had to leave Charles Stringham. Such a charmer, but

no woman could stay married to him for long.'

@Anne Stepney looked rather taken aback at this

peremptory approach.

@'And Mrs. Duport,' said Umfraville.

@'Was it your house I took in Hill Street?'

@'Yes,' said Jean, 'it was.'

@I wondered whether there would be an explosion at this

disclosure. The trouble at the house had involved some

question of a broken looking-glass and a burnt-out boiler.

Perhaps there had been other items too. Certainly there had

been a great deal of unpleasantness. However, in the un-

expected manner of persons who live their lives at a furious

rate, Mrs. Andriadis merely said in a subdued voice:

@'You know, my dear, I want to apologise for all that

happened in that wretched house. If I told you the whole

story, you would agree that I was not altogether to blame.

But it is all much too boring to go into now. At least you

got your money. I hope it really paid for the damage.'

@'We've got rid of the house now,' Jean said, laughing.

'I didn't ever like it much anyway.'

@'And Mr. Jenkins,' Umfraville said. 'A friend of
arles's--'

@She gave me a keen look.

@'I believe I've seen you before, too,' she said.

@I hoped she was not going to recall the scene Mr. Deacon

had made at her party. However, she carried the matter no

further.

@'Ethel,' she shouted, 'bring some glasses. There is beer

for those who can't drink whisky.'

@She turned towards Umfraville.

@'I'm quite glad to see you all,' she said; 'but you mustn't

stay too long after Werner appears. He doesn't approve

of people like you.'

@'Your latest beau, Milly?'

'Werner Guggenb*'uhl. Such a charming German boy.

He will be terribly tired when he arrives. He has been

walking in a procession all day.'

@'To meet the Hunger-Marchers?' I asked.

@It had suddenly struck me that in the complicated

pattern life forms, this visit to Mrs. Andriadis was all part

of the same diagram as that in which St. John Clarke,

Quiggin and Mona had played their part that afternoon.

@'I think so.  Were you marching too?'

@'No--but I knew some people who were.'

@'What an extraordinary world we live in,' said Umfra-

ville. 'All one's friends marching about in the park.'

@'Rather sweet of Werner, don't you agree?' said Mrs.

Andriadis. 'Considering this isn't his own country and all

the awful things we did to Germany at the Versailles

Treaty.'

@Before she could say more about him, Guggenb*'uhl him-

self arrived in the room.  He was dark and not bad-looking

in a very German style. His irritable expression recalled

Quiggin's. He bowed slightly from the waist when intro-

duced, but took no notice of any individual, not even Mrs.

Andriadis herself, merely glancing round the room and

then glaring straight ahead of him. There could be no

doubt that he was the owner of the grey pyjamas. He

reminded me of a friend of Mr. Deacon's called 'Willi':

described by Mr. Deacon as having 'borne much of the heat

of the day over against Verdun when nation rose against

nation'. Guggenb*'uhl was a bit younger than Willi, but in

character they might easily have a good deal in common.

@'What sort of a day did you have, Werner?' asked Mrs.

Andriadis.

@She used a coaxing voice, quite unlike the manner in

which she had spoken up to that moment. The tone made

me think of Templer trying to appease Mona. It was

equally unavailing, for Guggenb*'uhl made an angry gesture

with his fist.

@'What was it like, you ask,' he said. 'So it was like every-

thing in this country. Social-Democratic antics. Of it let us

not speak.'

@He turned away in the direction of the model theatre.

Taking no further notice of us, he began to manipulate the

scenery, or play about in some other manner with the equip-

ment at the back of the stage.

@'Werner is writing a play,' explained Mrs. Andriadis,

speaking now in a much more placatory manner. 'We

sometimes run through the First Act in the evening. How

is it going, Werner?'

@'Oh, are you?' said Anne Stepney. 'I'm terribly interested

in the Theatre. Do tell us what it is about.'

@Guggenb*'uhl turned his head at this.

@'I think it would not interest you,' he said. 'We have

done with old theatre of bourgeoisie and capitalists. Here

is <2Volksb*'uhnen>2--for actor that is worker like industrial

worker--actor that is machine of machines.'

@'Isn't it too thrilling?' said Mrs. Andriadis. 'You know

the October Revolution was the real turning point in the

history of the Theatre.'

@'Oh, I'm sure it was,' said Anne Stepney. 'I've read a lot

about the Moscow Art Theatre.'

@Guggenb*'uhl made a hissing sound with his lips, express-

ing considerable contempt.

@'Moscow Art Theatre is just to tolerate,' he said, 'but what

of biomechanics, of <2Tr*'ummer-Kunst,>2 has it? Then Shake-

speare's <2Ein Sommernahtstraum>2 or Toller's <2Masse-Mensch>2

will you take? The modern ethicop-social play I think you

do not like. Hauptmann, Kaiser, plays to Rosa Luxemburg

and Karl Liebknecht, yes. The new corporate life. The

socially conscious form. Drama as highest of arts we

Germans know. No mere entertainment, please. <2Lebens->2

<2stimmung>2 it is.  But it is workers untouched by middle class

that will make spontaneous. Of Moscow Art Theatre you

speak. So there was founded at Revolution both Theatre

and Art Soviet, millions, billions of roubles set aside by

Moscow Soviet of Soldier Deputies. Hundreds, thousands

of persons. Actors, singers, clowns, dancers, musicians,

craftsmen, designers, mechanics, electricians, scene-shifters,

all kinds of manual workers, all trained, yes, and supply-

ing themselves to make. Two years to have one perfect

single production--if needed so, three, four, five, ten years.

At other time, fifty plays on fifty successive nights.  It is not

be getting money, no.'

@His cold, hard voice, offering instruction, stopped

abruptly.

@'Any ventriloquists?' Umfraville asked.

@The remark passed unnoticed, because Anne Stepney

broke in again.

@'I can't think why we don't have a revolution here,' she

said, 'and start something of that sort.'

@'You would have a revolution here?' said Guggenb*'uhl,

smiling rather grimly. 'So?  Then I am in agreement with

you.'

@'Werner thinks the time has come to act,' said Mrs.

Andriadis, returning to her more decisive manner.  'He says

we have been talking for too long.'

@'Oh, I do agree,' said Anne Stepney.

@I asked Guggenb*'uhl if he had come across St. John

Clarke that afternoon.  At this question his manner at once

changed.

@'You know him? The writer.'

@'I know the man and the girl who were pushing him.'

@'Ach, so.'

@He seemed uncertain what line to take about St. John

Clarke.  Perhaps he was displeased with himself for having

made disparaging remarks about the procession in front of

someone who knew two of the participants and might

report his words.

@'He is a famous author, I think.'

@'Quite well known.'

@'He ask me to visit him.'

@'Are you going?'

@'Of course.'

@'Did you meet Quiggin--his secretary--my friend?'

@'I think he goes away soon to get married.'

@'To the girl he was with?'

@'I think so. Mr. Clarke ask me to visit him when your

friend is gone for some weeks. He says he will be lonely

and would like to talk.'

@Probably feeling that he had wasted enough time already

with the company assembled in the room, and at the same

time unwilling to give too much away to someone he

did not know, Guggenb*'uhl returned, after saying this, to

the model theatre. Ostentatiously, he continucd to play

about with its accessories. We drank our beer. Even

Umfraville seemed a little put out of countenance by

Guggenb*'uhl, who had certainly brought an atmosphere of

peculiar unfriendliness and disquiet into the room. Mrs.

Andriadis herself perhaps took some pleasure in the general

discomfiture for which he was responsible. The imposition

of one kind of a guest upon another is a form of exercising

power that appeals to most persons who have devoted a

good deal of their life to entertaining. Mrs. Andriadis, as

a hostess of long standing and varied experience, was prob-

ably no exception. In addition to that, she, like St. John

Clarke, had evidently succumbed recently to a political

conversion, using Guggenb*'uhl as her vehicle. His un-

compromising behaviour no doubt expressed to perfection

the role to which he was assigned in her mind: the scourge

of frivolous persons of the sort she knew so well.

@One of the essential gifts of an accomplished hostess is

an ability to dismiss, quietly and speedily, guests who

have overstayed their welcome. Mrs. Andriadis must have

possessed this ingenuity to an unusual degree. I can

remember no details of how our party was shifted. Perhaps

Umfraville made a movement to go that was quickly

accepted. Brief good-byes were said. One way or another,

in an unbelievably short space of time, we found ourselves

once more in Park Lane.

@'You see,' said Umfraville. 'Even Milly . ..'

@Some sort of a discussion followed as to whether or not

the evening should be brought to a close at this point.

Umfraville and Anne Stepney were unwilling to go home;

Barnby was uncertain what he wanted to do; Jean and I

agreed that we had had enough. The end of it was that

the other two decided to accompany Umfraville to a place

where a 'last drink' could be obtained. Other people's

behaviour were unimportant to me; for in some way the

day had righted itself, and once more the two of us seemed

close together.

@<35>3

<1WHEN,>1 in describing Widmerpool's new employment,

Templer had spoken of 'the Acceptance World', I had been

struck by the phrase. Even as a technical definition, it

seemed to suggest what we are all doing; not only in

business, but in love, art, religion, philosophy, politics, in

fact all human activities. The Acceptance World was the
orld in which the essential element--happiness, for

example--is drawn, as it were, from an engagement to meet

a bill. Sometimes the goods are delivered, even a small

profit made; sometimes the goods are not delivered, and

disaster follows; sometimes the goods are delivered, but the

value of the currency is changed. Besides, in another sense,

the whole world is the Acceptance World as one approaches

thirty; at least some illusions discarded. The mere fact

of still existing as a human being proved that.

@I did not see Templer himself until later in the summer,

when I attended the Old Boy Dinner for members of Le

Bas's house. That year the dinner was held at the Ritz.

We met in one of the subterranean passages leading to the

private room where we were to eat.  It was a warm, rather

stuffy July evening. Templer, like a Frenchman, wore a

white waistcoat with his dinner-jacket, a fashion of the

moment, perhaps by then already a little outmoded.

@'We always seem to meet in these gorgeous halls,' he said.

@'We do.'

@'I expect you've heard that Mona bolted,' he went on

quickly.  'Joined up with that friend of yours of the remark-

able suit and strong political views.'

@His voice was casual, but it had a note of obsession as if

his nerves were on edge. His appearance was unchanged,

possibly a little thinner.

@Mona's elopement had certainly been discussed widely.

In the break-up of a marriage the world inclines to take the

side of the partner with most vitality, rather than the one

apparently least to blame. In the Templers' case public

opinion had turned out unexpectedly favourable to Mona,

probably because Templer himself was unknown to most of

the people who talked to me of the matter. Normal in-

accuracies of gossip were increased by this ignorance. In one

version, Mona was represented as immensely rich, ill treated

by an elderly, unsuccessful stockbroker; another described

Templer as unable to fulfil a husband's role from physical

dislike of women. A third account included a twenty-

minute hand-to-hand struggle between the two men, at the

end of which Quiggin had gained the victory: a narrative

sometimes varied to a form in which Templer beat Quiggin

unconscious with a shooting-stick. In a different vein was

yet another story describing Templer, infatuated with his

secretary, paying Quiggin a large sum to take Mona off his

hands.

@On the whole people are unwilling to understand even

comparatively simple siiuations where husband and wife

are concerned; indeed, a simple explanation is the last

thing ever acceptable. Here, certainly, was something com-

plicated enough, a striking reversal of what might be

thought the ordinary course of events. Templer, a man

undoubtedly attractive to women, loses his wife to Quiggin,

a man usually ill at ease in women's company: Mona, as

Anna Karenin, directing her romantic feelings towards

Karenin as a lover, rather than Vronsky as a husband. For

me, the irony was emphasised by Templer being my first

schoolboy friend to seem perfectly at home with the opposite

sex; indeed, the first to have practical experience in that

quarter.  But conflict between the sexes might be compared

with the engagement of boxers in which the best style is

not always victorious.

@'What will they live on?' Templer said. 'Mona is quite an

expensive luxury in her way.'

@I had wondered that, too, especially in the light of an

experience of a few weeks before, when sitting in the

Caf*'e Royal with Barnby. In those days there was a female

orchestra raised on a dais at one side of the huge room

where you had drinks. They were playing <2In a Persian>2

<2Market,>2 and in that noisy, crowded, glaring, for some

reason rather ominus atmosphere, which seemed specially

designed to hear such confidences, Barnby had been telling

me that matters were at an end between Anne Stepney and

himself. That had not specially surprised me after the eve-

ning at Foppa's. Barnby had reached the climax of his story

when Quiggin and Mark Members passed our table, side by

side, on their way to the diners' end of the room. That was,

to say the least, unexpected. They appeared to be on per-

fectly friendly terms with each other. When they saw us,

Members had given a distant, evasive smile, but Quiggin

stopped to speak. He seemed in an excellent humour.

@'How are you, Nick?'

@'All right.'

@'Mark and I are going to celebrate the completion of

<2Unburnt Boats,'>2 he said. 'It is a wonderful thing to finish

a book.'

@'When is it to appear?'

@'Autumn.'

@I felt sure Quiggin had stopped like this in order to

make some statement that would define more clearly his

own position. That would certainly be a reasonable aim on

his part.  I was curious to know why the two of them were

friends again; also to learn what was happening about

Quiggin and Mona. Such information as I possessed then

had come through Jean, who knew from her brother only

that they had gone abroad together. At the same time, as a

friend of Templer's, I did not want to appear too obviously

willing to condone the fact that Quiggin had eloped with

his wife.

@'Mona and I are in Sussex now,' said Quiggin, in a voice

that could almost be described as unctuous, so much did it

avoid his usual harsh note. 'We have been lent a cottage.

I am just up for the night to see Mark and make final

arrangements with my publisher.'

@He talked as if he had been married to Mona, or at

least lived with her, for years; just as, a few months

earlier, he had spoken as if he had always been St. John

Clarke's secretary. It seemed hard to do anything but

accept the relationship as a <2fait accompli.>2  Such things have

to be.

@'Can you deal with St. John Clarke from so far away?'

@'How do you mean?'

@Quiggin's face clouded, taking on an expression suggest-

ing he had heard the name of St. John Clarke, but was

quite unable to place its associations.

@'Aren't you still his secretary?'

@'Oh, good gracious, no,' said Quiggin, unable to repress a

laugh at the idea.

@'I hadn't heard you'd left him.'

@'But he has become a Trotskyist.'

@'What form does it take?'

@Quiggin laughed again. He evidently wished to show his

complete agreement that the situation regarding St. John

Clarke was so preposterous that only a certain degree of

jocularity could carry it off. Laughter, his manner indicated,

was a more civilised reaction than the savage rage that

would have been the natural emotion of most right-minded

persons on hearing the news for the first time.

@'The chief form,' he said, 'is that he consequently now

requires a secretary who is also a Trotskyist.'

@'Who has he got?'

@'You would not know him.'

@'Someone beyond the pale?'

@'He has found a young German to pander to him, as a

matter of fact. One Guggenb*'uhl.'

@'I have met him as a matter of fact.'

@'Have you?' said Quiggin, without interest. 'Then I

should advise you to steer clear of Trotskyists in the future,

if I were you.'

@'Was this very sudden?'

@'My own departure was not entirely involuntary,' said

Quiggin. 'At first I thought the man would rise above the

difficulties of my domestic situation. I--and Mona, too--

did everything to assist and humour him. In the end it

was no good.'

@He had moved off then, at the same time gathering in

Members, who had been chatting to a girl in dark glasses

sitting at a neighbouring table.

@'We shall stay in the country until the divorce comes

through,' he had said over his shoulder.

@The story going round was that Mona had been intro-

duced by Quiggin to St. John Clarke as a political

sympathiser. Only later had the novelist discovered the

story of her close association with Quiggin. He had begun

to make difficulties at once. Quiggin, seeing that circum-

stances prevented the continuance of his job, made a goodish

bargain with St. John Clarke, and departed. Guggenb*'uhl

must have stepped into the vacuum. No one seemed to

know the precise moment when he had taken Quiggin's

place; nor how matters remained regarding Mrs. Andriadis.

@Like Templer, I wondercd how Quiggin and Mona

would make two ends meet, but these details could hardly

be gone into then and there in the Ritz.

@'I suppose Quiggin keeps afloat,' I said. 'For one thing,

he must have just had an advance for his book.  Still, I don't

expect that was anything colossal.'

@'That aunt of Mona's died the other day,' said Templer,

'She left Mona her savings--a thousand or so, I think.'

@'So they won't starve.'

@'As a matter of fact I haven't cut her allowance yet,' he

said, reddening slightly. 'I suppose one will have to in due

course.'

@He paused.

@'I must say it was the hell of a surprise,' he said. 'We'd

had plenty of rows, but I certainly never thought she would

go off with a chap who looked quite so like something the

cat had brought in.'

@I could only laugh and agree. These things are capable

of no real explanation. Mona's behaviour was perhaps to

be examined in the light of her exalted feelings for Quiggin

as a literary figure. Combined with this was, no doubt, a

kind of envy of her husband's former successes with other

women; for such successes with the opposite sex put him,

as it were, in direct competition with herself.  It is, after all,

envy rather than jealousy that causes most of the trouble

in married life.

@'I've really come here tonight to see Widmerpool,' said

Templer, as if he wished to change the subject. 'Bob Duport

is in England again.  I think I told you Widmerpool might

help him land on his feet.'

@I felt a sense of uneasiness that he found it natural to

tell me this.  Jean had always insisted that her brother knew

nothing of the two of us. Probably she was right; though

I could never be sure that someone with such highly

developed instincts where relations between the sexes were

concerned could remain entirely unaware that his sister was

having a love affair. On the other hand he never saw us

together. No doubt, so far as Jean was concerned, he

would have regarded a lover as only natural in her situation.

He was an exception to the general rule that made Barnby,

for example, puritanically disapproving of an irregular life

in others.  In any case, he probably spoke of Duport in the

way people so often do in such circumstances, ignorant of

the facts, yet moved by some unconscious inner process to

link significant names together. All the same, I was con,

scious of a feeling of foreboding. I was going to see Jean

that night; after the dinner was at an end.

@'I am rather hopeful things will be patched up with Jean,

if Bob's business gets into running order again,' Templer

said. 'The whole family can't be in a permanent state of

being deserted by their husbands and wives. I gather Bob

is no longer sleeping with Bijou Ardglass, which was the

real cause of the trouble, I think.'

@'Prince Theodoric's girl friend?'

@'That's the one. Started life as a mannequin. Then

married Ardglass as his second wife. When he died the

title, and nearly all the money, went to a distant cousin,

so she had to earn a living somehow. Still, it was incon-

venient she should have picked on Bob.'

@By this time we had reached the ante-room where Le

Bas's Old Boys were assembling. Le Bas himself had not

yet arrived, but Whitney, Maiden, Simson, Brandreth,

Ghika, and Fettiplace-Jones were standing about, sipping

drinks, and chatting uneasily. All of them, except Ghika,

were already showing signs of the wear and tear of life.

Whitney was all but unrecognisable with a moustache;

Maiden had taken to spectacles; Simson was prematurely

bald; Fettiplace-Jones, who was talking to Widmerpool

without much show of enjoyment, although he still looked

like a distinguished undergraduate, had developcd that

ingratiating, almost cringing manner that some politicians

assume to avoid an appearance of thrusting themselves

forward. Fettiplace-Joncs had been Captain of the Housc

when I had arrived there as a new boy and had left at the

end of that term.  He was now Member of Parliament for

some northern constituency.

@Several others came in behind Templer and myself.  Soon

the room became fairly crowded.  Most of the new arrivals

were older or younger than my own period, so that I knew

them only by sight from previous dinners.  As it happened,

I had not attended a Le Bas dinner for some little time.

I hardly knew why I was there that year, for it was excep-

tional for an old friend like Templer to turn up.  I think

I had a subdued curiosity to see if Dicky Umfraville would

put in an appearance, and fulfil his promise to 'tear the place

in half'.  A chance meeting with Maiden, one of the organ-

isers had settled it, and I came.  Maiden now buttonholed

Templer, and, at the same moment, Fettiplace-Jones moved

away from Widmerpool to speak with Simson, who was said

to be doing well at the Bar.  I found Widmerpool beside me.

@'Why, hullo--hullo--Nicholas--' he said.

@He glared through his thick glasses, the side pieces of

which were becoming increasingly embedded in wedges of

fat below his temples.  At the same time he transmitted one

of those skull-like smiles of conventional friendliness to be

generally associated with conviviality of a political sort.  He

was getting steadily fatter. His dinner-jacket no longer

fitted him: perhaps had never done so with much success.

Yet he carried this unhappy garment with more of an air

than he would have achieved in the old days; certainly with

more of an air than he had ever worn the famous over-

coat for which he had been notorious at school.

@We had met once or twice, always by chance, during the

previous few years. On each occasion he had been going

abroad for the Donners-Brebner Company. 'Doing pretty

well,' he had always remarked, when asked how things

were with him. His small eyes had glistened behind his

spectacles when he had said this. There was no reason to

disbelieve in his success, though I suspected at the time

that his job might be more splendid in his own eyes than

when regarded by some City figure like Templer. However,

after Templer's more recent treatment of him, I supposed

that I must be wrong in presuming exaggeration on

Widmerpool's part.  Although two or three years older than

myself, he could still be little more than thirty. No doubt

he was 'doing well'. With the self-confidence he had

developed, he moved now with a kind of strut, a curious

adaptation of that uneasy, rubber-shod tread, squeaking

rhythmically down the interminable linoleum of our school-

days. I remembered how Barbara Goring (whom we had

both been in love with, and now I had not thought of for

years) had once poured sugar over his head at a dance.

She would hardly do that today. Yet Widmerpool had never

entirely overcome his innate oddness; one might almost

say, his monstrosity.  In that he resembled Quiggin. Perhaps

it was the determination of each to live by the will alone.

At any rate, you noticed Widmerpool immediately upon

entering a room. That would have given him satisfaction.

@'Do you know, I nearly forgot your Christian name,' he

said, not without geniality. 'I have so many things to re-

member these days.  I was just telling Fettiplace-Jones about

North Africa. In my opinion we should hand back

Gibraltar to Spain, taking Ceuta in exchange. Fettiplace-

Jones was in general agreement. He belongs to a group in

Parliament particularly interested in foreign affairs. I have

just come back from those parts.'

@'For Donners-Brebner?'

He nodded, puffing out his lips and assuming the appear-

ance of a huge fish.

@'But not in the future,' he said, breathing inward hard.

'I'm changing my trade.'

@'I heard rumours.'

@'Of what?'

@'That you were joining the Acceptance World.'

@'That's one way of putting it.'

@Widmerpool sniggered.

@'And you?'-he asked.

@'Nothing much.'

@'Still producing your art books?  It was art books, wasn't

it?-

	'Yes--and I wrote a book myself.'

@'Indeed, Nicholas.  What sort of a book?'

@'A novel, Kenneth.'

@'Has it been published?'

@'A few months ago.'

@'Oh.'

@His ignorance of novels and what happened about them

was evidently profound. That was, after all, reasonable

enough. Perhaps it was just lack of interest on his part.

Whatever the cause, he looked not altogether approving,

and did not enquire the name of the book.  However, prob-

ably feeling a moment later that his reply may have sounded

a shade flat, he added: 'Good . . . good,' rather in the

manner of Le Bas himself, when faced with an activity of

which he was uninformed and suspicious, though at the

same time unjustified in categorically forbidding.

@'As a matter of fact I am making some notes for a book

myself,' said Widmerpool. 'Quite a different sort of book

from yours, of course. So we may be authors together. Do

you always come to these dinners?  I have been abroad, or

otherwise prevented, on a number of occasions, and thought

I would see what had happened to everybody. One some-

times makes useful contacts in such ways.'

@Le Bas himself arrived in the room at that moment, burst-

ing through the door tumultuously, exactly as if he were

about to surprise the party assembled there at some

improper activity. It was in this explosive way that he had

moved about the house at school.  For a second he made me

feel as if I were back again under his surveillance; and one

young man, with very fair hair, whose name I did not

know, went scarlet in the face at his former housemaster's

threatening impetuosity, just as if he himself had a guilty

conscience.

@However, Le Bas, as it turned out, was in an excellent

humour. He went round the room shaking hands with

everyone, making some comment to each of us, more often

than not hopelessly inappropriate, showing that he had

mistaken the Old Boy's name or generation.  In spite of that

I was aware of a feeling of warmth towards him that I had

never felt when at school; perhaps because he seemed to

represent, like a landscape or building, memories of a

vanished time. He had become, if not history, at least part

of one's own autobiography. In his infinitely ancient dinner'

jacket and frayed tie he looked, as usual, wholly unchanged.

His clothes were as old as Sillery's, though far better cut.

Tall, curiously Teutonic in appearance, still rubbing his red,

seemingly chronically sore eyes, as from time to time he

removed his rimless glasses, he came at last to the end of

the diners, who had raggedly formed up in line round

the room, as if some vestige of school discipline was

reborn in them at the appearance of their housemaster.

After the final handshake, he took up one of those painful,

almost tortured positions habitually affected by him,

this particular one seeming to indicate that he had just

landed on his heels in the sand after making the long jump.

@Maiden, who, as I have said, was one of the organisers of

the dinner, and was in the margarine business, now began

fussing, as if he thought that by his personal excrtions alone

would anyone get anything to eat that night.  He came up

to me, muttering agitatedly.

@'Another of your contemporaries accepted--Stringham,'

he said. 'I suppose you don't know if he is turning up?

We really ought to go into dinner soon.  Should we wait for

him?  It is really too bad of people to be late for this sort

of occasion.'

@He spoke as if I, or at least all my generation, werc

responsible for the delay. The news that Stringham might

be coming to the dinner surprised me.  I asked Maiden about

his acceptance of the invitation.

@'He doesn't turn up as a rule,' Maiden explained, 'but l

ran into him the other night at the Silver Slipper and he

promised to come.  He said he would attend if he were sober

enough by Friday. He wrote down the time and place on

a menu and put it in his pocket.  What do you think?'

@'I should think we had better go in.'

@Maiden nodded, and screwed up his yellowish, worried

face, which seemed to have taken on sympathetic colouring

from the commodity he marketed.  I remembered him as a

small boy, perpetually preoccupied with the fear that he

would be late for school or games: this tyranny of Time

evidently pursuing him no less in later life. Finally, his

efforts caused us to troop into the room where we were to

dine. From what I had heard of Stringham recently, I

thought his appearance at such a dinner extremely unlikely.

@At the dinner table I found myself between Templer and

a figure who always turned up at these dinners whose name

I did not know: a middle-aged--even elderly, he then

seemed--grey-moustached man. I had, rather half-heartedly,

tried to keep a place next to me for Stringham, but gave

up the idea when this person diffidently asked if he

might occupy the chair. There were, in any case, some

spare places at the end of the table, where Stringham could

sit, if he arrived, as a certain amount of latitude always

existed regarding the size of the party. It was to be pre-

sumed that the man with the grey moustache had been at

Corderey's, in the days before Le Bas took over the house;

if so, he was the sole survivor from that period who ever

put in an appearance. I remembered Maiden had once

commented to me on the fact that one of Corderey's Old

Boys always turned up, although no one knew him. He

had seemed perfectly happy before dinner, drinking a glass

of sherry by himself. Hitherto, he had made no effort

whatever to talk to any of the rest of the party. Le Bas

had greeted him, rather unenthusiastically, with the words

'Hullo, Tolland'; but Le Bas was so notoriously vague

regarding nomenclature that this name could be accepted

only after corroboration. Something about his demeanour

reminded me of Uncle Giles, though this man was, of

course, considerably younger. There had been a Tolland at

school with me, but I had known him only by sight.  I asked

Templer whether he had any news of Mrs. Erdleigh and

Jimmy Stripling.

@'I think she is fairly skinning Jimmy,' he said, laughing.

'They are still hard at it. I saw Jimmy the other day in

Pimm's.'

@The time having come round for another tea at the

Ufford, I myself had visited Uncle Giles fairly recently.

While there I had enquired, perhaps unwisely, about Mrs.

Erdleigh. The question had been prompted partly by

curiosity as to what his side of the story might be, partly

from an inescapable though rather morbid interest in what

happened to Stripling.  I should have known better than to

have been surprised by the look of complete incomprehen-

sion that came over Uncle Giles's face.  It was similar tech-

nique, though put into more absolute execution, that

Quiggin had used when asked about St. John Clarke. No

doubt it would have been better to have left the matter of

Mrs. Erdleigh alone. I should have known from the start

that interrogation would be unproductive.

@'Mrs. Erdleigh?'

@He had spoken not only as if he had never heard of Mrs.

Erdleigh but as if even the name itself could not possibly

belong to anyone he had ever encountered.

@'The lady who told our fortunes.'

@'What fortunes?'

@'When I was last here.'

@'Can't understand what you're driving at.'

@'I met her at tea when I last came here--Mrs. Erdleigh.'

@'Believe there was someone of that name staying here.'

@'She came in and you introduced me.'

@'Rather an actressy woman, wasn't she?  Didn't stay very

long. Always talking about her troubles, so far as I can

remember.  Hadn't she been married to a Yangtze pilot, or

was that another lady?  There was a bit of a fuss about the

bill, I believe.  Interested in fortune-telling, was she?  How

did you discover that?'

@'She put the cards out for us.'

@'Never felt very keen about all that fortune-telling stuff,'

said Uncle Giles, not unkindly. 'Doesn't do the nerves any

good, in my opinion.  Rotten lot of people, most of them,

who take it up.'

@Obviously the subject was to be carried no further. Per-

haps Mrs. Erdleigh, to use a favourite phrase of my uncle's,

had 'let him down'.  Evidently she herself had been removed

from his life as neatly as if by a surgical operation, and,

by this mysterious process of voluntary oblivion, was

excluded even from his very consciousness; all done, no

doubt, by an effort of will. Possibly everyone could live

equally untrammelled lives with the same determination.

However, this mention of Uncle Giles is by the way.

@'Jimmy is an extraordinary fellow,' said Templer, as if

pondering my question. 'I can't imagine why Babs married

him.  All the same, he is more successful with the girls than

you might think.'

@Before he could elaborate this theme, his train of

thought, rather to my relief, was interrupted. The cause

of this was the sudden arrival of Stringham. He looked

horribly pale, and, although showing no obvious sign of

intoxication, I suspected that he had already had a lot to

drink. His eyes were glazed, and, holding himself very

erect, he walked with the slow dignity of one who is not

absolutely sure what is going on round him. He went

straight up to the head of the table where Le Bas was

sitting and apologised for his lateness--the first course was

being cleared--returning down the room to occupy the spare

chair beside Ghika at the other end.

@'Charles looks as if he has been hitting the martinis pretty

hard,' said Templer.

@I agreed. After a consultation with the wine waiter,

Stringham ordered a bottle of champagne.  Since Ghika had

already provided himself with a whisky and soda there was

evidently no question of splitting it with his next-door

neighbour. Templer commented on this to me, and laughed.

He seemed to have obtained relief from having discussed

the collapse of his marriage with a friend who knew some-

thing of the circumstances. He was more cheerful now

and spoke of his plans for selling the house near Maiden-

head. We began to talk of things that had happened at

school.

@'Do you remember when Charles arranged for Le Bas

to be arrested by the police?' said Templer.  'The Braddock

alias Thorne affair.'

@We were sitting too far away from Le Bas for this remark

to be overheard by him. Templer looked across to where
tringham was sitting and caught his eye. He jerked his

head in Le Bas's direction and held his own wrists together

as if he wore handcuffs. Stringham seemed to understand

his meaning at once.  His face brightened, and he made as

if to catch Ghika by the collar. This action had to be

explained to Ghika, and, during the interlude, Parkinson,

who was on Templer's far side, engaged him in conversa-

tion about the Test Match.

@I turned to the man with the grey moustache. He

seemed to be expecting an approach of some sort, because,

before I had time to speak, he said:

@'I'm Tolland.'

@'You were at Corderey's, weren't you?'

@'Yes, I was.  Seems a long time ago now.'

@'Did you stay on into Le Bas's time?'

@'No. Just missed him.'

@He was infinitely melancholy; gcnde in manner, but with

a suggestion of force behind this sad kindliness.

@'Was Umfraville there in your time?'

@'R. H. J. Umfraville?'

@'I think so. He's called 'Dicky'.'

@Tolland gave a slow smile.

@'We overlapped,' he admitted.

@There was a pause.

@'Umfraville was my fag,' said Tolland, as if drawing the

fact from somewhere very deep down within him. 'At least

I believe he was.  I was quite a bit higher up in the school,

of course, so I don't remember him very well.'

@A terrible depression seemed to seize him at the thought

of this great seniority of his to Umfraville. There was a

lack of serenity about Tolland at close quarters, quite differ-

ent from the manner in which he had carried off his own

loneliness in a crowd. I felt rather uneasy at the thought

of having to deal with him, perhaps for the rest of dinner.

Whitney was on the other side and there was absolutely

no hope of his lending a hand in a case of that sort.

@'Umfraville a friend of your?' asked Tolland.

@He spoke almost as if condoling with me.

@'I've just met him.  He said he might be coming tonight.'

@Tolland looked at me absently. I thought it might be

better to abandon the subject of Umfraville. However, a

moment or two later he himself returned to it.

@'I don't think Umfraville will come tonight,' he said. 'I

heard he'd just got married.'

@It certainly seemed unlikely that even Umfraville would

turn up for dinner at this late stage in the meal, though

the reason given was unexpected, even scriptural. Tolland

now seemed to regret having volunteered the information.

@'Who did he marry?'

@This question discomposed him even further. He cleared

his throat several times and took a gulp of claret, nearly

choking himself.

@'As a matter of fact I believe she is a distant cousin of

mine--perhaps not,' he said.  'I can never remember that sort

of thing--yes, she is, though.  Of course she is.'

@'Yes?-

	'One of the Bridgnorth girls--Anne, I think.'

@'Anne Stepney?'

@'Yes, yes. That's the one. You probably know her.'

@'I  do.'

@'Thought you would.'

@'But she is years younger.'

@'She is a bit younger. Yes, she is a bit younger. Quite

a bit younger. And he has been married before, of course.'

@'It makes his fourth wife, doesn't it?'

@'Yes, I believe it does. His fourth wife. Pretty sure it

does make his fourth.'

@Tolland looked at me in absolute despair, I think not so

much at the predicament in which Anne Stepney had in-

volved herself, as at the necessity for such enormities to

emerge in conversation.  The news was certainly unforeseen.

@'What do the Bridgnorths think about it?'

@It was perhaps heartless to press him on such a point, but,

having been told something so extraordinary as this, I

wanted to hear as much as possible about the circumstances.

Rather unexpectedly, he seemed relieved to report on that

aspect of the marriage.

@'The fellow who told me in the Guards' Club said they

were making the best of it.'

@'There was no announcement?'

@'They were married in Paris,' said Tolland. 'So this

fellow in the Guards' Club--or was it Arthur's?--told me.

My brother, Warminster, when he was alive, used to talk

about Umfraville. I think he liked him. Perhaps he didn't,

But I think he did.'

@'I was at school with a Tolland.'

@'My nephew. Did you know his brother, Erridge?

Erridge has succeeded now. Funny boy.'

@Sir Gavin Walpole-Wilson had mentioned a 'Norah

Tolland' as friend of his daughter, Eleanor.  She turned out

to be a niece.

@'Warminster had ten children. Big family for these days.'

@We rose at that moment to drink the King's health; and

Le Bas's. Then Le Bas stood up, gripping the table with

both hands as if he proposed to overturn it. This was in

preparation for the delivery of his accustomed speech, which

varied hardly at all year by year. His guttural, carefully

enunciated consonants echoed through the room.

@'... cannot fail to be gratifying to see so many of my

former pupils here tonight ... do not really know what to

say to you all ... certainly shall not make a long speech

... these annual meetings have their importance ... encour-

age a sense of continuity ... give perhaps an opportunity

of taking stock ... friendship ... I've said to some of you

before ... needs keeping up ... probably remember, most

of you, lines quoted by me on earlier occasions ...

@And I sat by the shelf till I lost myself,

@And roamed in a crowded mist,

@And heard lost voices and saw lost looks,

@As I pored on an old School List.

. . . verses not, of course, in the modern manner . . . some

of us do not find such appeals to sentiment very sympathetic

. . . typically Victorian in their emphasis . . . all the . . .

rather well describe what most of us--well--at least some

of us--may--feel--experience--when we meet and talk over

our ...'

@Here Le Bas, as usual, paused; probably from the convic-

tion that the word 'schooldays' had accumulated various

associations in the minds of his listeners to which he was

unwilling to seem to appeal. The use of hackneyed words

had always been one of his preoccupations.  He was, I think,

dimly aware that his own bearing was somewhat clerical,

and was accordingly particularly anxious to avoid the

appearance of preaching a sermon.  He compromised at last

with '... other times ...' returning, almost immediately, to

the poem; as if the increased asperity that the lines now

assumed would purge him from the imputation of senti-

mentality to which he had refcrred. He cleared his throat

harshly.

@'... You will remember how it goes later ...

^30There were several duffers and several bores,^35

@Whose faces I've half forgot,^35

Whom I lived among, when the world was young^35

@And who talked no end of rot;^40

^20

. . . of course I do not mean to suggest that there was any-

one like that at my house . ..'

@This comment always caused a certain amount of mild

laughter and applause.  That evening Whitney uttered some

sort of a cry reminiscent of the hunting field, while Widmer-

pool grinned and drummed on the tablecloth with his fork,

slightly shaking his head at the same time to indicate that

he did not at all concur with Le Bas in supposing his

former pupils entirely free from such failings.

@'. . . certainly nobody of that sort here tonight . . . but at

the same time . . . no good pretending that all time spent

at school was--entirely blissful . . . certainly not for a house-

master . ..'

@There was more restrained laughter.  Le Bas's voice tailed

away. In his accustomed manner he had evidently tried to

steer clear of any suggestion that schooldays were the

happiest period of a man's life, but at the same time feared

that by tacking too much he might become enmeshed in

dangerous admissions from which escape could be difficult.

This had always been one of his main anxieties as a school-

master.  He would go some distance along a path indicated

by common sense, but overcome by caution, would stop

half-way and behave in an unexpected, illogical manner.

Most of the conflicts between himself and individual boys

could be traced to these hesitations at the last moment.

Now he paused, beginning. again in more rapid sentences:

@'. . . as I have already said . . . do not intend to make a

long, prosy after-dinner speech . . . nothing more boring

. . . in fact my intention is--as at previous dinners--to ask

some of you to say a word or two about your own activities

since we last met together ... For example, perhaps Fetti-

place-Jones might tell us something of what is going for'

@Fettiplace-Jones did not need much pressing to oblige in

this request.  He was on his feet almost before Le Bas had

finished speaking.  He was a tall, dark, rather good-looking

fellow, with a lock of hair that fell from time to time over

a high forehead, giving him the appearance of a Victorian

statesman in early life.  His maiden speech (tearing Ramsay

MacDonald into shreds) had made some impression on the

House, but since-then there had been little if any brilliance

about his subsequent parliamentary performances, though

he was said to work hard in committee. India's eventual

independence was the subject he chose to tell us about, and

he continued for some little time. He was followed by

Simson, a keen Territorial, who asked for recruits. Widmer'

pool broke into Simson's speech with more than one 'hear,

hear'.  I remembered that he had told me he too was a Terri-

torial officer.  Whitney had something to say of Tanganyika.

Others followed with their appointed piece. At last they

came to an end. It seemed that Le Bas had exhausted the

number of his former pupils from whom he might hope to

extract interesting or improving comment. Stringham was

sitting well back in his chair.  He had, I think, actually gone

to sleep.

@There was a low buzz of talking.  I had begun to wondcr

how soon the party would break up, when there came the

sound of someone rising to their feet.  It was Widmerpool.

He was standing up in his place, looking down towards the

table, as he fiddled with his glass.  He gave a kind of intro-

ductory grunt.

@'You have heard something of politics and India,' he said,

speaking quickly, and not very intelligibly, in that ~ck,

@19o

irritable voice which I remembered so well. 'You have been

asked to join the Territorial Army, an invitation I most

heartily endorse.  Something has been said of counry cricket.

We have been taken as far afield as the Congo Basin, and as

near home as this very hotel, where one of us here tonight

worked as a waiter while acquiring his managerial training.

Now I--I myself--would like to say a word or two about

my experiences in the City.'

@Widmerpool stopped speaking for a moment, and took a

sip of water. During dinner he had shared a bottle of

Graves with Maiden. There could be no question that he

was absolutely sober. Le Bas--indeed everyone present--

was obviously taken aback by this sudden, uncomfortable

diversion. Le Bas had never liked Widmerpool, and, since

the party was given for Le Bas, and Le Bas had not asked

Widmerpool to speak, this behaviour was certainly uncalled

for. In fact it was unprecedented. There was, of course, no

cogent reason, apart from that, why Widmerpool should not

get up and talk about the life he was leading.  Just as other

speakers had done. Indeed, it could be argued that the

general invitation to speak put forward by Le Bas required

acceptance as a matter of good manners.  Perhaps that was

how Widmerpool looked at it, assuming that Le Bas had

only led off with several individual names as an encourage-

ment for others to take the initiative in describing their lives.

All that was true. Yet, in some mysterious manner, school

rules, rather than those of the outer world, governed that

particular assembly.  However successful Widmerpool might

have become in his own eyes, he was not yet important in

the eyes of those present.  He remained a nonentity, perhaps

even an oddity, remembered only because he had once

worn the wrong sort of overcoat. His behaviour seemed

all the more outrageous on account of the ease with

which, at that moment on account of the special circum-

stances, he could force us to listen to him without protest.

@'This is terrific,' Templer muttered.

@I looked across at Stringham, who had now woken up,

and, having finished his bottle, was drinking brandy. He

did not smile back at me, instead twisting his face into one

of those extraordinary resemblances to Widmerpool at which

he had always excelled. Almost immediately he resumed

his natural expression, still without smiling. The effect of

the grimace was so startling that I nearly laughed aloud.  At

the same time, something set, rather horrifying, about

Stringham's own features, put an abrupt end to this sudden

spasm of amusement. This look of his even made me

feel apprehension as to what Stringham himself might do

next. Obviously he was intensely, if quietly, drunk.

@Meanwhile, Widmerpool was getting into his stride:

@'. . . tell you something of the inner workings of the

Donners-Brebner Company,' he was saying in a somewhat

steadier voice than that in which he had begun his address.

'There is not a man of you, I can safely say, who would not

be in a stronger position to face the world if he had some

past experience of employment in a big concern of that sort.

However, several of you already know that I am turning my

attention to rather different spheres.  Indeed, I have spoken

to some of you of these changes in my life when we have

met in the City . ..'

@He looked round the room and allowed his eyes to rest for

a moment on Templer, smiling again that skull-like grin

with which he had greeted us.

@'This is getting embarrassing,' said Templer.

@I think Templer had begun to feel he had too easily

allowed himself to accept Widmerpool as a serious person.

It was impossible to guess what Widmerpool was going to

say next. He was drunk with his own self-importance.

@'. . . at one time these financial activities were devoted to

the satisfaction of man's greed. Now we have a rather differ-

ent end in view.  We have been suffering--it is true to say

that we are still suffering and shall suffer for no little time

--from the most devastating trade depression in our recorded

history. We have been forced from the Gold Standard, so

it seems to me, and others not unworthy of a public hearing,

because of the insufficiency of money in the hands of con-

sumers. Very well. I suggest to you that our contempomry

anxieties are not entirely vested in the question of balance

of payment, that is at least so far as current account may be

concerned, and I put it to you that certain persons, who

should perhaps have known better, have been responsible

for unhappy, indeed catastrophic capital movements through

a reckless and inadmissible lending policy.'

@I had a sudden memory of Monsieur Dubuisson talking

like this when Widmerpool and I had been at La Grena-

di*!ere together.

@'... where our troubles began,' said Widmerpool. 'Now

if we have a curve drawn on a piece of paper representing

an average ratio of persistence, you will agree that authentic

development must be demonstrated by a register alternately

ascending and descending the level of our original curve of

homogeneous development.  Such an image, or, if you prefer

it, such a geometrical figure, is dialectically implied precisely

by the notion, in itself, of an average ratio of progress.  No

one would deny that. Now if a governmental policy of

regulating domestic prices is to be arrived at in this or any

other country, the moment assigned to the compilation of

the index number which will establish the par of interest

and prices must obviously be that at which internal

economic conditions are in a condition of relative equili-

brium. So far so good. I need not remind you that the

universally accepted process in connexion with everyday

commodities is for their production to be systematised by

the relation between their market value and the practica-

bility of producing them, a steep ascent in value in contrast

with the decreased practicability of production proportion-

ately stimulating, and a parallel descent correspondingly

depressing production. All that is clear enough. The fact

that the index number remains at par regardless of altera-

tions in the comparative prices of marketable commodities

included in it, necessarily expresses the unavoidable truth

that ascent or descent of a specific commodity is compen,

sated by analogous adjustments in the opposite direction in

prices of residual commodities ...'

@How long Widmerpool would have continued to speak

on these subjects, it is impossible to say. I think he had settled

down in his own mind to make a lengthy speech, whether

anyone else present liked it or not.  Why he had decided to
address the table in this manner was not clear to me.

Possibly, he merely desired to rehearse aloud certain

economic views of his own, expressing them before an in-

different, even comparatively hostile audience, so that he

might judge what minor adjustments ought to be made

when the speech was delivered on some far more important

occasion.  Such an action would not be out of keeping with

the eccentric, dogged manner in which he ran his life. At

the same time, it was also likely enough that he wanted to

impress Le Bas's Old Boys--those former schoolfellows

who had so greatly disregarded him--with the fact that he

was getting on in the world in spite of them; that he had

already become a person to be reckoned with.

@Widmerpool may not even have been conscious of this

motive, feeling it only instinctively, for there could be no

doubt that he now thought of his schooldays in very

different terms from any that his contemporaries would

have used. Indeed, such references as he had ever made to

his time at school, for example when we had been in France

together, always suggested that he saw himself as a boy

rather above the average at work and games:  that justice

had never been done to his energies in either direction was

on account of the unsatisfactory manner in which both these

sides of life were administered by those in authority.

@The effect of his discourse on those sitting round the

table had been mixed. Fettiplace-Jones's long, handsome,

pasty face assumed a serious, even worried expression, im-

plying neither agreement nor disagreement with what was

being said: merely a public indication that, as a Member of

Parliament, he was missing nothing.  It was as if he were

waiting for the Whip's notification of which way he should

vote.  Parkinson gave a kind of groan of boredom, which I

heard distinctly, although he was separated from me by

Templer. Tolland, on the other hand, leant forward as if he

feared to miss a syllable. Simson looked very stern. Whitney

and Brandreth had begun a whispered conversation to-

gether. Maiden. who was next to Widmerpool, was throw-

ing anxious, almost distmcted glances about him. Ghika,

like Tolland, leant forward.  He fixed his huge black eyes

on Widmerpool, concentrating absolutely on his words, but

whether with interest, or boredom of an intensity that

might lead even to physical assault, it was impossible to say.

Templer had sat back in his chair, clearly enjoying every

phrase to the full. Stringham also expressed his apprecia-

tion, though only by the faintest smile, as if he saw all

through a cloud. Then, suddenly, the scene was brought

abruptly to a close.

@'Look at Le Bas,' said Templer.

@'It's a stroke,' said Tolland.

@Afterwards--I mean weeks or months afterwards, when

I happened upon any of the party thcn present, or heard

the incident discussed--there was facetious comment sug-

gesting that Le Bas's disabling attack had been directly

brought about by Widmerpool's speech. Certainly no one

was in a position categorically to deny that there was no

connection whatever between Widmerpool's conduct and

Le Bas's case. Knowing Le Bas, I have no doubt that he

was sitting in his chair, bitterly regretting that he was no

longer in a position to order Widmerpool to sit down at

once. That would have been natural enough. A sudden

pang of impotent rage may even have contributed to

other elements in bringing on his seizure. But that was

to take rather a melodramatic view. More probably, the

atmosphere of the room, full of cigar smoke and fumes of

food and wine, had been too much for him. Besides, the

weather had grown distinctly hotter as the night wore on.

Le Bas himself had always been a great opener of windows.

He would insist on plenty of fresh air on the coldest winter

day at early school in any room in which he was teaching.

His ordinary life had not accustomed him to gatherings of

this sort, which he only had to face once a year.  No doubt

he had always been an abstemious man, in spite of

Templer's theory, held at school, that our housemaster was

a secret drinker. That night he had possibly taken more

wine than he was accustomed. He was by then getting on

in years, though no more than in his sixties. The precise

cause of his collapse was never known to me.  These various

elements probably all played a part.

@Lying back in his chair, his cheeks flushed and eyes

closed, one side of Le Bas's face was slightly contorted.

Fettiplace-Jones and Maiden must have taken in the situa-

tion at once, because I had scarcely turned in Le Bas's direc-

tion before these two had picked him up and carried him

into the next room. Widmerpool followed close behind

them. There was some confusion when people rose from
the table.  I followed the rest through the door to the ante-

room, where Le Bas was placed full-length on the settee.

Somebody had removed his collar.

@This had probably been done by Brandreth, who now took

charge.  Brandreth, whose father had acquired a baronetcy

as an ear-specialist, was himself a doctor. He began

immediately to assure everyone that Le Bas's condition was

not serious.

@'The best thing you fellows can do is to clear off home

and leave the room as empty as possible,' Brandreth said.

'I don't want all of you crowding round.'

@Like most successful medical men in such circumstances,

he spoke as if the matter had now automatically passed

from the sphere of Le Bas's indisposition to the far more

important one of Brandreth's own professional convcnience.

Clearly there was something to be said for following his

recommendation. Brandreth seemed to be handling the

matter competently, and, after a while, all but the more

determined began to disappear from the room. Tolland

made a final offer to help before leaving, but Brandreth

snapped at him savagely and he made off; no doubt to

appear again the following year.  I wondered how he filled

in the time between Old Boy dinners.

@'I shall have to be going, Nick,' said Templer. 'I have

to get back to the country tonight.'

@'This dinner seems to have been rather a fiasco.'

@'Probably my fault,' said Templer. 'Le Bas never liked

me. However, I think it was really Widmerpool this time.

What's happened to him, by the way? I never had my chat

about Bob.'

@Widmerpool was no longer in the room.  Maiden said hc

had gone off to ring up the.place where Le Bas was staying,

and warn them what had happened. By then Le Bas was

sitting up and drinking a glass of water.

@'Well, fixing old Bob up will have to wait,' said Templer.

'I want to do it for Jean's sake.  I'm afraid you had to listen

to a lot of stuff about my matrimonial affairs tonight.'

@'What are your plans?'

@'Haven't got any. I'll ring up some time.'

@Templer went off. I looked round for Stringham, think-

ing I would like a word with him before leaving.  It was a

long time since we had met, and I was not due to arrive at

Jean's until late.  Stringham was not in the small group that

remained. I supposed he had left; probably making his

way to some other entertainment. There was nothing sur-

prising in that.  In any case, it was unlikely that we should

have done more than exchange a few conventional

sentences, even had he remained to talk for a minute or

two. I knew little or nothing of how he lived since his

divorce. His mother's picture still appeared from time to

time in the illustrated papers. No doubt her house in the

country provided some sort of permanent background into

which he could retire when desirable.

@On the way out, I glanced by chance through the door

leading to the room where we had dined. Stringham was

still sitting in his place at the table, smoking a cigarette and

drinking coffee.  The dining-room was otherwise deserted.

I went through the door and took the chair beside him.

@'Hullo, Nick.'

@'Are you going to sit here all night?'

@'Precisely the idea that occurred to me.'

@'Won't it be rather gloomy?'

@'Not as bad as when they were all here. Shall we order

another bottle?'

@'Let's have a drink at my club.'

@'Or my flat.  I don't want to look at any more people.'

@'Where is your flat?'

@'West Halkin Street.'

@'All right.  I shan't be able to stay long.'

@'Up to no good?'

@'That's it.'

@'I haven't seen you for ages, Nick.'

@'Not for ages.'

@'You know my wife, Peggy, couldn't take it.  I expcct you

heard. Not surprising, perhaps. She has married an awfully

nice chap now. Peggy is a really lucky girl now. A really

charming chap.  Not the most amusing man you ever met,

but a really <2nice chap.'>2

@'A relation of hers, isn't he?'

@'Quite so. A relation of hers, too. He will be already

familiar with all those lovely family jokes of the Stepney

family, those very amusing jokes.  He will not have to have

the points explained to him.  When he stays at Mountfichet,

he will know where all the lavatories are--if there is,

indeed, more than one, a matter upon which I cannot speak

with certainty. Anyway, he will not always have to be

bothering the butler to direct him to where that one is--and

losing his way in that awful no-man's-land between the

servants' hall and the gun-room. What a house]  Coronets

on the table napkins, but no kind hearts between the sheets.

He will be able to discuss important historical events with

my ex-father-in-law, such as the fact that Red Eyes and

Cypria dead-heated for the Cesarewitch in 1893--or was it

1894?  I shall forget my own name next. He will be able to

talk to my ex-mother-in-law about the time Queen

Alexandra made that <2double entendre>2 to her uncle. The

only thing he won't be able to do is to talk about Braque

and Dufy with my ex-sister-in-law, Anne. Still, that's a

small matter. Plenty of people about to talk to girls of

Braque and Dufy these days. I heard, by the way, that

Anne had got a painter of her own by now, so perhaps

even Braque and Dufy are things of the past. Anyway,

he's a jolly nice chap and Peggy is a very lucky girl.'

@'Anne has married Dicky Umfraville.'

@'Not <2the>2 Dicky Umfraville?'

@'Yes.'

@'Well I never.'

@Even that did not make much impression on him. The

fact that he had not already heard of Anne Stepney's

marriage suggested that Stringham must pass weeks at a

time in a state in which he took in little or nothing of what

was going on round him. That could be the only explana-

tion of ignorance of an event with which he had such close

connexions.

@'Shall we make a move?'

@'Where is Peter Templer? I saw his face--sometimes

two or three of them--during that awful dinner.  We might

bring him along as well. Always feel a bit guilty about

Peter.'

@'He has gone home.'

@'I bet he hasn't. He's gone after some girl. Always chasing

the girls. Let's follow him.'

@'He lives near Maidenhead.'

@'Too far. He must be mad.  Is he married?'

@'His wife has just left him.'

@'There you are. Women are all the same. My wife left

me.  Has your wife left you, Nick?'

@'I'm not married.'

@'Lucky man. Who <2was>2 Peter's wife, as they say?'

@'A model called Mona.'

@'Sounds like the beginning of a poem. Well, I should

have thought better of her. One of those long-haired

painter fellows must have got her into bad habits.  Leaving

her husband, indeed. She oughtn't to have left Peter. I

was always very fond of Peter.  It was his friends I couldn't

stand.'

@'Let's go.-

	'Look here, do let's have another drink. What happened

to Le Bas?'

@'He is going to be taken home in an ambulance.'

@'Is he too tight to walk?'

@'He had a stroke.'

@'Is he dead?'

@'No--Brandreth is looking after him.'

@'What an awful fate.  Why Brandreth?'

@'Brandreth is a doctor.'

@'Hope I'm never ill when Bmndreth is about, or he

might look after me. I'm not feeling too good at the

moment as a matter of fact. Perhaps we'd better go, or

Brandreth will start treating me too.  It was Widmerpool's

speech, of course. Knocked Le Bas out. Knocked him out

cold. Nearly knocked me out too. Do you remember when

we got Le Bas arrested?'

@'Let's go to your flat.'

@'West Halkin Street. Where I used to live before I was

married. Surely you've been there.'

@'No.'

@'Ought to have asked you, Nick. Ought to have asked

you. Been very remiss about things like that.'

@He was extremely drunk, but his legs seemed fairly steady

beneath him.  We went upstairs and out into the street.

@'Taxi ? '

@'No,' said Stringham. 'Let's walk for a bit. I want to

cool off. It was bloody hot in there. I don't wonder Le

Bas had a stroke.'

@There was a rich blue sky over Piccadilly.  The night was

stiflingly hot. Stringham walked with almost exaggerated

sobriety.  It was remarkable considering the amount he had

drunk.

@'Why did you have so many drinks tonight?'

@'Oh, I don't know,' he said. 'I do sometimes. Rather

often nowadays, as a matter of fact. I felt I couldn't face

Le Bas and his Old Boys without an alcoholic basis of some

sort. Yet for some inexplicable reason I wanted to go.

That was why I had a few before I arrived.'

@He put out his hand and touched the railings of the

Green Park as we passed them.

@'You said you were not married, didn't you, Nick?'

@'Yes.'

@'Got a nice girl?'

@'Yes.'

@'Take my advice and don't get married,'

@'All right.'

@'What about Widmerpool.  Is he married?'

@'Not that I know of.'

@'I'm surprised at that. Widmerpool is the kind of man

to attract a woman. A good, sensible man with no non-

sense about him.  In that overcoat he used to wear he would

be irresistible. Quite irresistible. Do you remember that

overcoat?'

@'It was before my time.'

@'It's a frightful shame,' said Stringham. 'A frightful

shame, the way these women go on. They are all the same.

They leave me. They leave Peter. They will probably leave

you. . . . I say, Nick, I am feeling extraordinarily odd. I

think I will just sit down here for a minute or two.'

@I thought he was going to collapse and took his arm.

However, he settled down in a sitting position on the edge

of the stone coping from which the milings rose.

@'Long, deep breaths,' he said. 'Those are the things.'

@'Come on, let's try and get a cab.'

@'Can't, old boy.  I just feel too, too sleepy to get a cab.'

@As it happened, there seemed to be no taxis about at that

moment.  In spite of what must have been the intense dis-

comfort of where he sat, Stringham showed signs of drop-

ping off to sleep, closing his eyes and leaning his head back

against the railings. It was difficult to know what to do. In

this state he could hardly reach his flat on foot. If a taxi

appeared, he might easily refuse to enter it. I remembered

how once at school he had sat down on a staircase and

refused to move, on the grounds that so many annoying

things had happened that afternoon that further struggle

against life was useless This was just such another occa-

sion.  Even when sober, he possessed that complete reckless-

ness of behaviour that belongs to certain highly strung

persons. I was still looking down at him, trying to decide

on the next step, when someone spoke just behind me.

@'Why is Stringham sitting there like that?'

@It was Widmerpool's thick, accusing voice. He asked the

question with a note of authority that suggested his per-

sonal responsibility to see that people did not sit about

in Piccadilly at night.

@'I stayed to make sure everything was done about Le Bas

that should be done,' he said. 'I think Bmndreth knows

his job.  I gave him my address in case of difficulties.  It was

a disagreeable thing to happen. The heat, I suppose. It

ruined the few words I was about to say. A pity. I thought

I would have a breath of fresh air after what we had been

through, but the night is very warm even here in the open.'

@He said all this with his usual air of immense importance.

@'The present problem is how to get Stringham to his flat.'

@'What is wrong with him? I wonder if it is the same as

Le Bas. Perhaps something in the food--'

@Widmerpool was always ready to feel disturbed regarding

any question of health. In France he had been a great

consumer of patent medicines. He looked nervously at

Stringham. I saw that he feared the attack of some

mysterious sickness that might soon infect himself.

@'Stringham has had about a gallon to drink.'

@'How foolish of him.'

@I was about to make some reply to the effect that the

speeches had needed something to wash them down with,

but checked any such comment since Widmerpool's help

was obviously needed to get Stringham home, and I thought

it better not to risk offending him. I therefore muttered

something that implied agreement.

@'Where does he live?'

@'West Halkin Street.'

@Widmerpool acted quickly. He strolled to the kerb. A

cab seemed to rise out of the earth at that moment.  Perhaps

all action, even summoning a taxi when none is there, is

basically a matter of the will. Certainly there had been no

sign of a conveyance a' second before.  Widmerpool made a

curious, pumping movement, using the whole of his arm,

as if dragging down the taxi by a rope.  It drew up in front

of us.  Widmerpool turned towards Stringham, whose eyes

were still closed.

@'Take the other arm,' he said, peremptorily.

@Although he made no resistance, this intervention aroused

Stringham. He began to speak very quietly:

@'Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,

@And wash my Body whence the Life has died ...'

@We shoved him on to the back seat, where he sat between

us, still murmuring to himself:

@'... And lay me shrouded in the living leaf

@By some not unfrequented garden-side ...

I think that's quite a good description of the Green Park,

Nick, don't you.... 'Some not unfrequented garden-side-'

... Wish I sat here more often ... Jolly nice....'

@'Does he habitually get in this state?' Widmerpool asked.

@'I don't know.  I haven't seen him for years.'

@'I thought you were a close friend of his. You used to

be--at school.'

@'That's a long time ago.'

@Widmerpool seemed aggrieved at the news that

Stringham and I no longer saw each other regularly.  Once

decided in his mind on a given picture of what some aspect

of life was like, he objected to any modification of the

design. He possessed an absolutely rigid view of human

relationships. Into this, imagination scarcely entered, and

whatever was lost in grasping the niceties of character was

amply offset by a simplification of practical affairs. Occa-

sionally, it was true. I had known Widmerpool involved

in situations which were extraordinary chiefly because they

were entirely misunderstood, but on the whole he probably

gained more than he lost by these limitations; at least in

the spheres that attracted him.  Stringham now lay between

us, as if fast asleep.

@'Where is he working at present?'

@'I don't know.'

@'It was a good thing he left Donners-Brebner,' said

Widmerpool.  'He was doing neither himself nor the com-

pany any good.'

@'Bill Truscott has gone, too, hasn't he?'

@'Yes,' said Widmerpool, looking straight ahead of

him. 'Truscott had become very interested in the by--

products of coal and found it advantageous to make a

change.'

@We got Stringham out of the taxi on arrival without

much difficulty and found his latchkey in a waistcoat

pocket. Inside the flat, I was immediately reminded of his

room at school. There were the eighteenth-century prints

of the racehorses, Trimalchio and the The Pharisee; the same

large, rather florid photograph of his mother : a snapshot of

his father still stuck in the corner of its frame. However,

the picture of 'Boffles' Stringham--as I now thought of

him after meeting Dicky Umfraville--showed a decidedly

older man than the pipe-smoking, open-shirted figure I

remembered from the earlier snapshot. The elder String-

ham, looking a bit haggard and wearing a tie, sat on a

seat beside a small, energetic, rather brassy lady, presumably

his French wife. He had evidently aged considerably. I

wondered if friendship with Dicky Umfraville had had

anything to do with this. Opposite these photographs

was a dmwing by Modigliani, and an engraving of

a seventeenth-century mansion done in the style of

Wenceslaus Hollar. This was Glimber, the Warringtons'

house, left to Stringham's mother during her lifetime by

her first husband. On another wall was a set of coloured

prints illustrating a steeplechase ridden by monkeys

mounted on dogs.

@'What are we going to do with him?'

@'Put him to bed,' said Widmerpool, speaking as if any

other action were inconceivable.

@Widmerpool and I, therefore, set out to remove String-

ham's clothes, get him into some pyjamas, and place him

between the sheets. This was a more difficult job than

might be supposed. His stiff shirt seemed riveted to him.

However, we managed to get it off at last, though not

without tearing it. In these final stages, Stringham him-

self returned to consciousness.

@'Look here,' he said, suddenly sitting up on the bed, 'what

is happening?  People seem to be treating me roughly.  Am

I being thrown out of somewhere? If so, where? And

what have I done to deserve such treatment? I am per-

fectly prepared to listen to reason and admit that I was in

the wrong, and pay for anything I have broken. That is

provided, of course, that I was in the wrong.  Nick, why are

you letting this man hustle me?  I seem for some reason to

be in bed in the middle of the afternoon.  Really, my habits

get worse and worse. I am even now full of good resolu-

tions for getting up at half-past seven every morning. But

who is this man?  I know his face.'

@'It's Widmerpool. You remember Widmerpool?'

@'Remember Widmerpool . ..' said Stringham.  'Re-

member Widmerpool. . . . Do I remember Widmerpool?

. . . How could I ever forget Widmerpool? . . . How

could anybody forget Widmerpool? . ..'

@'We thought you needed help, Stringham,' said Widmer-

pool, in a very matter-of-fact voice. 'So we put you to bed.'

@'You did, did you?'

@Stringham lay back in the bed, looking fixedly before

him.  His manner was certainly odd, but his utterance was

no longer confused.

@'You needed a bit of looking after,' said Widmerpool.

@'That time is past,' said Stringham.

@He began to get out of bed.

@'No. . ..'

@Widmerpool took a step forward. He made as if to

restrain Stringham from leaving the bed, holding both his

stubby hands in front of him, as if warming them before a

fire.

@'Look here,' said Stringham, 'I must be allowed to get

in and out of my own bed.  That is a fundamental human

right.  Other people's beds may be another matter. In them,

another party is concerned.  But ingress and egress of one's

own bed is unassailable.'

@'Much better stay wherc you are,' said Widmerpool, in

a voice intended to be soothing.

@'Nick, are you a party to this?'

@'Why not call it a day?'

@'Take my advice,' said Widmerpool. 'We know what is

best for you.'

@'Rubbish.'

@'For your own good.'

@'I haven't got my own good at heart.'

@'We will get you anything you want.'

@'Curse your charity.'

@Once more Stringham attempted to get out of the bed.

He had pushed the clothes back, when Widmerpool threw

himself on top of him, holding Stringham bodily there.

While they struggled together, Stringham began to yell at

the top of his voice.

@'So these are the famous Widmerpool good manners, are

they?' he shouted. 'This is the celebrated Widmerpool

courtesy, of which we have always heard so much. Here

is the man who posed as another Lord Chesterfield. Let

me go, you whited sepulchre, you serpent, you small-time

Judas, coming to another man's house in the guise of pay-

ing a social call, and then holding him down in his own bed.'

@The scene was so grotesque that I began to laugh; not

altogether happily, it was true, but at least as some form

of nervous relief.  The two of them wrestling together were

pouring with sweat, especially Widmerpool, who was the

stronger.  He must have been quite powerful, for Stringham

was fighting like a maniac. The bed creaked and rocked

as if it would break beneath them. And then, quite sud-

denly, Stringham began laughing too. He laughed and

laughed, until he could struggle no more. The combat

ceased. Widmerpool stepped back. Stringham lay gasping

on the pillows.

@'All right,' he said, still shaking with laughter, 'I'll stay.

To tell the truth, I am beginning to feel the need for a

little rest myself.'

@Widmerpool, whose tie had become twisted in the

struggle, straightened his clothes. His dinner-jacket looked

more extraordinary than ever. He was panting hard.

@'Is there anything you would like?' he asked in a formal

voice.

@'Yes,' said Stringham, whose mood was now completely

changed.  'A couple of those little pills in the box on the left

of the dressing-table. They will knock me out finally. I do

dislike waking at four and thinking things over. Perhaps

three of the pills would be wiser, on second thoughts.

Half measures are never any good.'

@He was getting sleepy again, and spoke in a flat,

mechanical tone. All his excitement was over. We gave

him the sleeping tablets.  He took them, turned away from

us, and rolled over on his side.

@'Good-night, all,' he said.

@'Good-night, Charles.'

@'Good-night, Stringham,' said Widmerpool, rather

severely.

@We perfunctorily tidied some of the mess in the

immediate neighbourhood of the bed. Stringham's clothes

were piled on a chair. Then we made our way down into
he street.

@'Great pity for a man to drink like that,' said Widmer-

pool.

@I did not answer, largely because I was thinking of

other matters: chiefly of how strange a thing it was that

I myself should have been engaged in a physical conflict

designed to restrict Stringham's movements: a conflict in

which the moving spirit had been Widmerpool. That

suggested a whole social upheaval: a positively cosmic

change in life's system. Widmerpool, once so derided by

all of us, had become in some mysterious manner a person

of authority. Now, in a sense, it was he who derided us;

or at least his disapproval had become something far more

powerful than the merely defensive weapon it had once

seemed.

@I remembered that we were not far from the place where

formerly Widmerpool had run into Mr. Deacon and

Gypsy Jones on the night of the Huntercombes' dance.

Then he had been on his way to a flat in Victoria.  I asked

if he still lived there with his mother.

@'Still there,' he said. 'Though we are always talking of

moving. It has great advantages, you know. You must

come and see us. You have been there in the past, haven't

you?'

@'I dined with you and your mother once.'

@'Of course. Miss Walpole-Wilson was at dinner, wasn't

she? I remember her saying afterwards that you did not

seem a very serious young man.'

@'I saw her brother the other day at the Isbister Retro-

spective Exhibition.'

@'I do not greatly care for the company of Sir Gavin,' said

Widmerpool. 'I dislike failure, especially failure in one

holding an official position. It is letting all of us down.

But--as I was saying--we shall be rather occupied with my

new job for a time, so that I expect we shall not be doing

much entertaining. When we have settled down, you must

come and see us again.'

@I was not sure if his 'we' was the first person plural of

royalty and editors, or whether he spoke to include his

mother; as if Mrs. Widmerpool were already a partner with

him in his bill-broking. We said good-night, and I wished

him luck in the Acceptance World. It was time to make

for Jean's.  She was reaching London by a late train that

evening, again lodged in the flat at the back of Rutland

Gate.

@On the way there I took from my pocket the post-

card she had sent telling me when to arrive.  I read it over,

as I had already done so many times that day.  There was

no mistake. I should be there at the time she asked. The

events of the evening seemed already fading into unreality

at the prospect of seeing her once more.

@The card she had sent was of French origin, in colour,

showing a man and woman seated literally one on top of

the other in an armchair upholstered with crimson plush.

These two exchanged ardent glances. They were evidently

on the best of terms, because the young man, fair, though

at the same time mther semitic of feature, was squeezing

the girl's arm just above the elbow. Wearing a suit of

rich brown material, a tartan tie and a diamond ring on

the third finger of his right hand, his face, as he dis-

played a row of dazzling teeth, reminded me of Prince

Theodoric's profile--as the Prince might have been painted

by Isbister. The girl smiled back approvingly as she

balanced on his knee.

@'Doesn't she look like Mona?' Jean had written on the

back.  Dark, with corkscrew curls, the girl was undeniably

pretty, dressed in a pink frock, its short sleeves frilled with

white, the whole garment, including the frills, covered with

a pattern of small black spots.  The limits of the photograph

caused her legs to fade suddenly from the picture, an un-

expected subordination of design created either to conceal

an impression of squatness, or possibly a purely visual effect

--the result of foreshortening--rather than because these

lower limbs failed in the eyes of the photographer to attain

a required standard of elegance. For whichever reason,

the remaining free space at the foot of the postcard was

sufficient to allow the title of the caption below to be printed

in long, flourishing capitals:

@<2Sex Appeal>2

@<2Ton regard et ta voix ont un je ne sais quoi...>2

@<2D'etrange et de troublant qui me met en *'emoi.>2

@Although in other respects a certain emptiness of back-

ground suggested a passage or hall, dim reflections of look-

ing-glass set above a shelf painted white seemed to belong

to a dressing-table: a piece of furniture hinting, con-

sequently, of bedrooms. To the left, sprays of artificial

flowers, red and yellow, drooped from the mouth of a large

vase of which the base was invisible. This gigantic vessel

assumed at first sight the proportions of a wine vat or

scpulchral urn, even one of those legendary jars into which

Morgiana, in the Arabian Nights, poured boiling oil

severally on the Forty Thieves: a public rather than private

ornament, it might be thought, decorating prcsumably the

bedroom, if bedroom it was, of a hotel. Indeed, the style

of furnishing was reminiscent of the Ufford.

@Contemplating the blended tones of pink and brown

framed within the postcard's scalloped edge of gold, one

could not help thinking how extraordinarily unlike 'the real

thing' was this particular representation of a pair of lovers;

indeed, how indifferently, at almost every level except the

highest, the ecstasies and bitterness of love are at once con-

veyed in art. So much of the truth remains finally un-

negotiable; in spite of the fact that most persons in love go

through remarkably similar experiences. Here, in the

picture, for example, implications were misleading, if not

positively inaccurate. The matter was presented as all too

easy, the twin flames of dual egotism reduced almost to

nothing, so that there was no pain; and, for that matter,

almost no pleasure.  A sense of anxiety, without which the

condition could scarcely be held to exist, was altogether

absent.

@Yet, after all, even the crude image of the postcard

depicted with at least a degree of truth one side of love's

outward appearance. That had to be admitted. Some of

love was like the picture. I had enacted such scenes with

Jean: Templer with Mona: now Mona was enacting them

with Quiggin : Barnby and Umfraville with Anne Stepney:

Stringham with her sister Peggy: Peggy now in the arms of

her cousin : Uncle Giles, very probably, with Mrs. Erdleigh:

Mrs. Erdleigh with Jimmy Stripling: Jimmy Stripling, if it

came to that, with Jean: and Duport, too.

@The behaviour of the lovers in the plush armchair beside

the sparse heads of those sad flowers was perfectly normal;

nor could the wording of the couplet be blamed as specially

far-fetched, or in some other manner indefensible.

'D'*'etrange et de troublant' were epithets, so far as they went,

perfectly appropriate in their indication of those indefinable,

mysterious emotions that love arouses. In themselves there

was nothing incongruous in such descriptive labels. They

might, indeed, be regarded as rather apt. I could hardly

deny that I was at that moment experiencing something of

the sort.

@The mere act of a woman sitting on a man's knee, rather

than a chair, ccrtainly suggested the Templer <2milieu.>2 A

memorial to Templer himself, in marble or bronze, were

public demand ever to arise for so unlikely a cenotaph,

might suitably take the form of a couple so grouped. For

some reason--perhaps a confused memory of <2Le Baiser-->2

the style of Rodin came to mind.  Templer's own point of

view seemed to approximate to that earlier period of the

plastic arts. Unrestrained emotion was the vogue then,

treatment more in his line than some of the bleakly in-

tellectual statuary of our own generation.

@Even allowing a fairly limited concession to its character

as a kind of folk perception--an eternal girl sitting on an

eternal young man's knee--the fact remained that an

infinity of relevant material had been deliberately omitted

from this vignette of love in action. These two supposedly

good-looking persons wcre, in effect, going through the

motions of love in such a manner as to convince others,

perhaps less well equipped for the struggle than themselves,

that they, too, the spectators, could be easily identified with

some comparable tableau. They, too, could sit embracing

on crimson chairs. Although hard to define with precision

the exact point at which a breach of honesty had occurred,

there could be no doubt that this performance included an

element of the confidence-trick.

@The night was a shade cooler now. Jean was wearing a

white blouse, or sports shirt, open at the neck. Beneath it,

her body trembled a little.

@'What was your dinner like?' she asked.

@'Peter turned up.'

@'He said he would probably go there.'

@I told her about Le Bas; and also about Stringham.

@'That is why I am a bit late.'

@'Did Peter mention that Bob is back in England?'

@'Yes.'

@'And that his prospects are not too bad?'

@'Yes.'

@'That may make difficulties.'

@'I know.'

@'Don't let's talk of them.'

@'No.'

@'Darling Nick.'

@Outside, a clock struck the hour. Though ominous, things

still had their enchantment. After all, as St. John Clarke

was reported to have said at the Huntercombes', 'All bless-

ings are mixed blessings.' Perhaps, in spite of everything,

the couple of the postcard could not be dismissed so easily.

It was in their world that I seemed now to find myself.