‘Oh, but I take a lot!’ said George. ‘Not in the way I mean,’ said Mrs. Buswell. ‘And it doesn’t do them any good, either.’

Wondering if it was what the doctor would have ordered, George ate his supper. He lingered over it, partly from loss of appetite, partly to eke out the interval before Deirdre came. Those long waits, with nothing but his thoughts to feed on! His thoughts were sicker than his stomach, or whatever part of him it was that had turned against him. Guiltily he remembered Mrs. Buswell. She would not go away, he was convinced, until he had eaten the last morsel. The last morsel took a great deal of getting down, but by swallowing it he felt he had done something for her, a little redressed the balance of mutual benefit. The look of satisfaction on her face rewarded him.

Swish, swish. Now she was washing up, and all for him. What a good creature she was! But he hoped she wouldn’t still be there when Deirdre came.

She wasn’t. She came in to bid him goodnight.

‘I should take one of those red pills if I was you,’ she said. He was surprised that she knew what they were for, and that she took so much interest in his belongings.

‘Would you give me the bottle?’ he asked, for he did not keep the tablets by his bed, for fear he should forget how many he had taken. She brought them, and he shook out two, and handed her the bottle, which she replaced.

‘I hope you’ll have a good night,’ she said, ‘I shall be back again at seven o’clock.’

Seven o’clock! He hadn’t realized she came so early; she lived in a distant suburb, and must get up at six. What a sacrifice, and all for him! He made an effort to accept the sacrifice as something due to him; but it didn’t go down much more easily than his supper had.

He would take the pills, but when? He didn’t want to be asleep when Deirdre came. Nine o’clock, ten o’clock, still she hadn’t come, but then she kept late hours, and she slept late, too. He often had to wake her. It was one of the things he most looked forward to, her moment of returning consciousness. She was so young, it took her a long time to come to herself—and him.

How long should he give her? Till midnight, he decided; but when midnight came and he had taken the pills he didn’t get off for a long time, for his unconscious mind, of which she had possession, kept nagging at him like a watch-dog.

Asleep at last, he dreamed, and dreamed of Deirdre, whom he had never dreamed about before; he had often wished he could. Having her he didn’t need to dream of her; perhaps that explained it. He was back at the party where he had been taken ill. It was very like the original party, except that the lights were brighter and between the rugs the parquet floor was shinier. He was still asking her to go back with him, and the young man still waited impatiently and possessively at her elbow. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ she said. ‘I’m trying to make a date with Rupert and you keep barging in.’ Suddenly the floor tilted up, almost level with his eye, and he clutched at her to steady himself. ‘Oh, do take care,’ she said, ‘you’ll spoil my dress,’ and he saw it was an oyster-coloured silk dress that he had given her, but not the one she had gone to the party in. ‘Give him your arm, Rupert, I think he must be drunk.’ The young man put out a helping hand but George shook it off. ‘He’s nothing to do with you,’ he said to Deirdre, ‘it’s me you should be thinking of.’ ‘Can’t you leave me alone one single minute?’ Deirdre asked. ‘I was just beginning to enjoy myself The room dipped and swayed, but somehow George managed to keep his feet. ‘But you ought to come with me,’ he said. ‘You would come with me if you loved me.’ At that both she and the young man laughed. ‘Love you?’ she said. ‘I’ve never loved you, and now I almost hate you.’ ‘Never loved me?’ said George, aghast. ‘You mean to say you’ve never loved me, all this time?’ ‘No, of course not.’ ‘But I always thought you did.’ ‘What made you think so?’ George became confused. ‘Because . . . because . . . because I loved you, I suppose.’ ‘Yes, that’s just it. You were so intent on loving me that you never asked yourself if I loved you. You never thought of my side of it, I never came into it except as somebody you were in love with. If you’d asked me whether I loved you, I should have told you no. It’s the first question most men ask, but you didn’t ask it because you didn’t mind. You were in love with love, not me. If I’d existed for you as a person it might have been different, but I didn’t. If you’d asked me to do something for you, except just one thing, it might have been different. But as it is——’

George reeled and crashed to the floor, and when he came to himself he was in fact on the floor, having fallen out of bed for the first time since he was a child.

He woke to a sense that something terrible had happened, but couldn’t imagine what, for he himself felt better. But the thing would not let him enjoy his convalescence; it kept demanding to be known and recognized, and at last through a barbituric mist it forced its way.

Deirdre didn’t love him, she had never loved him. She had appeared to him in a dream to tell him so, and the message was far more real and convincing than if she had spoken with her own voice, for it was the pure essence of experience, with no admixture of circumstance to dilute it. It was her spirit speaking straight to his—yes, straight, for she had told him straight.

It explained why she hadn’t come back with him from the party, why she hadn’t looked him up during the day, it explained everything that had puzzled him in her behaviour since first her behaviour began to puzzle him.

He felt he could not survive the blow, and the fact that he felt better physically made him better able to suffer mentally. He scarcely knew how to think, for all his thoughts that counted with him began and ended in Deirdre. Now they had nowhere to begin or end.

What time was it? It must be past seven, for through the square of glass over the door the light was shining, which meant that Mrs. Buswell had come back. He could not hear her, though. She must be taking great pains not to wake him. He called her and she came in, still on tiptoe.

‘I was just going to bring you your tea,’ she said. ‘It’s eight o’clock. Did you have a good night?’

George told her what had happened in the night.

‘You fell out of bed! Poor Mr. Lambert! I might have known, the bedclothes are in such a mess. I meant to make your bed again last night, but thought you were too tired. Now when you’ve drunk this tea, see if you can get up and I’ll make it for you. Or I’ll make it with you in it. I do like to see a man look comfortable.’

‘How kind you are.’

George found that he could stand without his head going round. While he was sitting in his dressing-gown the telephone bell rang. Mrs. Buswell, who was nearest, answered it. ‘It’s Miss O’Farrell,’ she said, and a shadow crossed her face.

‘Ask her to ring up later, Mrs. Buswell’ No sooner were the words out than he wished he could recall them.

‘Mr. Lambert doesn’t find it convenient to speak to you, Miss O’Farrell.’

What a way of putting it!

Expostulatory sounds came through the telephone.

‘In about half an hour, he isn’t well,’ said Mrs. Buswell.

Torn between misery and a slight sense of relief at the reprieve, George watched Mrs. Buswell making the bed. The feeling that he ought to be making it for her, not she for him, was less pronounced than he expected. But soon another thought came.

‘Why, it’s Sunday! You ought not to be here on Sunday!’

‘I came because you weren’t well,’ said Mrs. Buswell, ‘and you were all alone.’

What a wonderful woman! George began to speculate about her. What was she really like? What had her life been like? He had never asked her. He had always taken her and her services for granted; he had never shown, or felt, any curiosity about her. He paid her, and that was all, unaware of the treasure hidden in her.