“Too much imagination, my dear,” said Algy. “Go and write a dime novel.”

Linda shook her head.

“No, I’m going to do an anonymous autobiography. You know, Malice in Mayfair, or Velvet and Venom, or-”

“Lispings of a Liar,” said Giles rudely.

“Jealous!” said Linda. “He won’t be jealous about me, but he’d hate me to write a book-wouldn’t you, darling?”

“Well, I’d have to settle up for the libel actions. And if you don’t stop making love to Algy I shall probably break his head. Woman, your guests arrive. Behave!”

“It’ll be Sylvia Colesborough,” said Linda.

The front door of the flat opened and shut again. The maid announced, “Lady Colesborough and Mr. Rooster.”

Sylvia came in without hurry. She wore a pale gold frock. She had a radiance. The lights shone on her. Cyril Brewster, thin, dark, and earnest, followed her into the room. Linda surveyed him with surprise.

“Oh, Linda darling!” Sylvia kissed her. “I do hope you don’t mind, but Francis couldn’t come. He got a telephone call-from Birmingham, I think-they’re generally from Birmingham-and he had to rush off. I do think being in business is a bore. But, darling, I’m afraid I’ve made rather a muddle, because I’d written you down for tomorrow, so I was going to dine with Mr. Brewster, but when Francis said he couldn’t come I remembered-you know how one does all of a sudden-so I thought if I brought him along it wouldn’t put your table out.”

Mr. Brewster looked decidedly unhappy. The soul of correctness, he was being placed in a position which was irregular if not actually incorrect. The lady’s husband had been asked. He was not the lady’s husband. Far from it. He had only met her three times, and she had really given him no choice, she had simply brought him. Instead of her husband. And now it appeared that her husband hadn’t been asked either. Lady Colesborough had always known he was going to be away.

“You said so all along, Sylvia-you know you did,” said Linda, with an edge on her voice. Because really Sylvia was the limit, and the table could just be got to hold eight, but definitely wouldn’t take nine. Well, it had got to-that was all. And anyhow it would make a frightfully good story, Sylvia trailing in about twenty minutes late with that awful stick Cyril and apologizing for Francis who hadn’t been asked. She pushed aside Cyril’s painstaking politeness with a laugh.

“The more the merrier, and if there isn’t enough to go round, it shall be Giles. Or he and Algy can take it by turns. There’s going to be too much of both of them if they don’t watch it.”

Amid indignant protests the door opened. Food began to come in, and they sorted themselves. The table stretched, as tables do, and there was plenty to eat, as there always was in Linda’s house. She adored food, and could have lived on cream and potatoes without ever putting on a quarter of an ounce. Gay, racketing talk went to and fro. The red-haired girl, whose name was Muriel, told them she had been staying in a nudist colony and had felt an urge towards crinolines and large Victorian shawls ever since. She was wearing a shawl now, bright green and Spanish, and her very full black taffeta skirts swept the floor. Giles’ friend with the superiority complex looked moody and said nothing. His name was Cedric, and his infatuation for lively red-haired Muriel had reached a point of which it was a fiery torment to himself and a source of extreme boredom to everyone else. Muriel’s reactions those of the eternal feminine-a desire to prod, to poke, to stir the fire, and drop fresh fuel on the flame. Giles was hating her, and Linda despising him. The talk leapt flashing to and fro from pointed tongues.

Nobody said anything more about Algy. He was grateful, but he wondered why, discerning ultimately a queer substratum of loyalty that closed the ranks-and the tongues-against the outsider. Because Brewster-well there he was, just Brewster, Monty’s Industrious Apprentice, not quite one of themselves. Algy would be thrown only to his own wolf pack to rend. And who said dog didn’t eat dog? Wait and see.

X

Masses of people came in after dinner. They played darts, and shove-halfpenny, and the ancient, never-dying games of Love and Scandal in their most up-to-date forms-fewer words to the game, but the same call of the eye, the same lift of the eyebrow that beckoned a man or killed a reputation in Egypt, Greece or Rome two thousand years ago.

Sylvia couldn’t throw a dart straight to save her life. She regarded shove-halfpenny with horror. Why handle coppers if you hadn’t got to? She didn’t play the other games either. Algy took her to the window, lifted a bright green curtain, and let it fall again behind them.

“Look out here. Wait a minute till you can see. It’s worth while.”

They looked down as from a cliff on the dark tops of trees, all dark, all blurred, all moving in a wind which made no sound. More trees. Black houses away on the other side of the square, with bright lines showing here and there where a blind fell short or a curtain did not meet and just one window high up, bright and bare, with a black shadow coming and going in the room behind. And the river away to the left. Lights on it, moving lights, and a dark, slow stream, and the line of houses beyond, like an escarpment, blank and sheer.

To look out like this at night was to be soothed, consoled, assured of things immeasurably old and permanent-London-the river-trees and clouds-houses where people kindled fires from the same flame of hope which burned for ever and did not burn away. Things went on. You were up against it, you sweated blood, you won perhaps. And the game went on. Meanwhile this moment was good. Seen, Sylvia delighted and satisfied the eye. Unseen, she had the gift of silence. She stood with her shoulder touching his and leaned a little upon the sill, but did not speak. The good moment was shared. At least that is how it seemed to Algy. He heard the faintest of faint sighs, and thought it a tribute to the night.

“It’s pretty good, isn’t it?” he said.

“All those trees-and the river-like the country-” But her voice was flat.

A most horrible suspicion entered Algy’s mind.

“Don’t you like the country?”

“Oh, no.” Surprise enlived her tone. “Oh, no, I hate it-don’t you? Especially in the dark. Why, I lived in the country for years. It was dreadful. We hadn’t even got a car, and I do hate walking. I think I’d like to go back into the room if you don’t mind-I do rather hate the dark.”

Algy held the curtain and saw her pass beyond it. The light caught her gold hair and her gold dress as she went. But he did not follow her. He had been going to ask her about the Wessex-Gardners’ week-end party, but there would be time for that. He dropped the curtain, and turned to the river again. The moment had not been shared after all, but it was still good.

From behind him, in a sudden fierce whisper, came the voice of Cedric Blake.

“Muriel, it’s no use-I can’t stand it-you’ll have to!”

The whisper broke, and close by the curtain the red-haired girl laughed under her breath.

“You’re driving me mad!”

“I? You’re driving yourself.” Her voice was cool and scornful.

The curtain swayed inwards. Algy thought there was a snatched embrace. He thought he ought to say that he was there. He thought he had better not. Muriel’s voice came in a pricking undertone.

“If you do that again-”

“What will you do?”

She gave a sudden melting laugh.

“I really don’t know. Come and throw a dart.”

Algy heaved a sigh of relief. He was about to lift the curtain and emerge, when he heard his own name. Mary Carster said with tears in her voice,

“It’s perfectly horrible. How can they? I love Algy.”

“Bless you, my dear,” said Algy to himself. The refrain of a pleasanter song than Gilderoy hummed itself in his mind: