The Acceptance World

4

WHEN, in early spring, pale sunlight was flickering behind the mist above Piccadilly, the Isbister Memorial Exhibition 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 mysterious 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 cabinet at La Grenadière.

In Isbister’s work there was something of that inner madness. The deliberate naïveté 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 Victorian 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 certainly 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 insurance 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 treatment, the other pictures hanging alongside.

If things had turned out as they should, The Art of Horace Isbister 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 Man of Taste.’

‘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 withdraw 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 thoroughly 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 shipping and finance — not about painting. But he did not pose as a Man of Taste. Far from it.’

‘Deacon’s Boyhood of Cyrus 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 vers de societé, 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 successful. 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 Communist 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-examining in the dark, mirror-like surface of Sir Horrocks Rusby, framed for some unaccountable reason under glass. Clapham was up in arms at once at such superciliousness.

‘Of course people read St. John Clarke,’ he said, snappishly. ‘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 Fields of Amaranth 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 constituted his salon. ‘I did not know you were interested in art.’

‘Not interested in art?’ said Sillery, enjoying this accusation 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 mouvementé 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 catalogue 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 accompanied 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, standing 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 permanent 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 reappearance 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 employer’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 represented 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 movement, 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 I 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. We will not tolerate it. All thinking men are agreed about that. St. J. wants to do the introduction 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 dissertations 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 absolutely 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 see 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 marriage”.’

‘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 generation 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 comment 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. However, 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 pot 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 something better to do now.’

He paused and moistened his lips; adding rather mysteriously:

‘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 certainly 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, Unburnt Boats’

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 resemblance to himself. Now he had grown into a terse, emaciated, 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 intermittently 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 competent 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 mot 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 afterwards, 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 ennui 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 conflict to watch, rather than the significant crumbling of social foundations.

On that dank afternoon in the park Members had abandoned 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 working 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, grudgingly. ‘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 explanation 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 were 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 plage — 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 âme de boue, 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 enjoyable. 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. “Unmade 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”, eating pudding with a fork was “bourgeois”, the Ritz was “bourgeois”, Lady Huntercombe was “bourgeois”—he meant “bourgeoise”, of course, but French is not one of St. J.’s long suits. Then one morning at breakfast he said Cezanne 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 aristocrat”. 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 placement 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 Cézanne — 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 himself 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. A Liberal of the most old-fashioned kind. 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 to 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 Œdipus situation.’

‘Can’t you re-convert him from Marxism to psychoanalysis?’

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 entering 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 more 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 himself 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 figurehead 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 supposed. 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 raised, 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 procession 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 Midlands,’ said Members, as if it were a foolish, irrelevant question. ‘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 intermittent 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 anything 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 dullness 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 you 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? Why didn’t you?’

‘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 something.’

‘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 clear idea what the answer would be. Certainly, if she did, 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 comparatively calm seas because we lived from meeting to meeting, possessing no plan for the future. Her abandonment remained; the abandonment that had so much surprised 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, concealed 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 her 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?’

‘What 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 outré’

‘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 to 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 telling 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 remarked 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 intelligent,’ 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 intellectual 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 qualities 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 anyone — 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 circumstances 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. Accordingly, 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.

I 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 overwhelming 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 considering 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 experience 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 supposing — 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 with 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 tendresse — 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 kaleidoscope 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 staircase, over which brooded a peculiarly Italian smell: minestrone: 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 treatment 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 re galantuomo; with just that same air of royal amusement that anyone could possibly take seriously — even for a moment — the preposterous 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 regime. 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 photograph 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 highlights. 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 perpetual 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.

‘Là bas!’ Foppa would intone liturgically, as he leant forward into the abyss that reached down towards the kitchen, ‘Là 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 clientele would have objected to the presence there of any lady not entirely 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 companion, though also with a certain air of authority, displayed 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 they 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 conversation. 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, seeming 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 highlights,’ she said.

Before we could pursue the intricacies of Chardin’s technique 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 surprised 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 acquaintance 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. However, 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 complaining 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 similarity 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 the 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 postwar 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 friendship, 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 her 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 sometimes 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 congregation 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 disposition 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 completion 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 sometimes 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 abandoning her bored, listless tone. ‘I’ve always longed to meet Mrs. Andriadis. Wasn’t she some king’s mistress — 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 even 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 circumstances. 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 you, 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. Guggenbühl 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. Guggenbühl 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. Guggenbühl.

‘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 absolutely 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 distinctly 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 him,’ 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 that,’ 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 unexpected 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 Charles’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 Guggenbühl. 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 Umfraville. ‘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, Guggenbühl himself 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 introduced, 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’. Guggenbühl 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 Guggenbühl made an angry gesture with his fist.

‘What was it like, you ask,’ he said. ‘So it was like everything 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 equipment 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.’

Guggenbühl 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 Volksbühnen — 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.’

Guggenbühl made a hissing sound with his lips, expressing considerable contempt.

‘Moscow Art Theatre is just to tolerate,’ he said, ‘but what of biomechanics, of Trümmer-Kunst, has it? Then Shakespeare’s Ein Sommernachtstraum or Toller’s Masse-Mensch will you take? The modern ethico-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. Lebens-stimmung 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 supplying 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 Guggenbühl, 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 Guggenbühl 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, Guggenbühl returned, after saying this, to the model theatre. Ostentatiously, he continued to play about with its accessories. We drank our beer. Even Umfraville seemed a little put out of countenance by Guggenbühl, 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 probably no exception. In addition to that, she, like St. John Clarke, had evidently succumbed recently to a political conversion, using Guggenbühl as her vehicle. His uncompromising 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.