Chapter III: Part 3

‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to have a little nap,’ and trotted out of the room.

‘There’s a fire in the library, sir,’ said Mrs Florin. ‘I’ll bring you your coffee there. The Colonel doesn’t have coffee, he finds it interferes with his afternoon sleep. What time would you like your afternoon tea, sir?’

‘I ought really to be getting back to London. How long will it be before the Colonel comes down, do you think?’

‘Well, it all depends, sir. Not usually till about five or half-past. Then he reads until dinner at seven and after dinner gets the Rector to drive him in to the pictures. A sedentary life, as you might say.’

She led Adam into the library and put a silver coffee-pot at his elbow.

‘I’ll bring you tea at four,’ she said.

Adam sat in front of the fire in a deep armchair. Outside the rain beat on the double windows. There were several magazines in the library—mostly cheap weeklies devoted to the cinema. There was a stuffed owl and a case of early British remains, bone pins and bits of pottery and a skull, which had been dug up in the park many years ago and catalogued by Nina’s governess. There was a cabinet containing the relics of Nina’s various collecting fevers—some butterflies and a beetle or two, some fossils and some birds’ eggs and a few postage stamps. There were some bookcases of superbly unreadable books, a gun, a butterfly net, an alpenstock in the corner. There were catalogues of agricultural machines and acetylene plants, lawn mowers, ‘sports requisites’. There was a fire screen worked with a coat of arms. The chimney-piece was hung with the embroidered saddle-cloths of Colonel Blount’s regiment of Lancers. There was an engraving of all the members of the Royal Yacht Squadron, with a little plan in the corner, marked to show who was who. There were many other things of equal interest besides, but before Adam had noticed any more he was fast asleep.

Mrs Florin woke him at four. The coffee had disappeared and its place was taken by a silver tray with a lace cloth on it. There was a silver tea-pot, and a silver kettle with a little spirit-lamp underneath, and a silver cream jug and a covered silver dish full of muffins. There was also hot buttered toast and honey and gentleman’s relish and a chocolate cake, a cherry cake, a seed cake and a fruit cake and some tomato sandwiches and pepper and salt and currant bread and butter.

‘Would you care for a lightly boiled egg, sir? The Colonel generally has one if he’s awake.’

‘No, thank you,’ said Adam. He felt a thousand times better for his rest. When Nina and he were married, he thought, they would often come down there for the day after a really serious party. For the first time he noticed an obese liver and white spaniel, which was waking up, too, on the hearthrug.

‘Please not to give her muffins,’ said Mrs Florin, ‘it’s the one thing she’s not supposed to have, and the Colonel will give them to her. He loves that dog,’ she added with a burst of confidence. ‘Takes her to the pictures with him of an evening. Not that she can appreciate them really like a human can.’

Adam gave her—the spaniel, not Mrs Florin—a gentle prod with his foot and a lump of sugar. She licked his shoe with evident cordiality. Adam was not above feeling flattered by friendliness in dogs.

He had finished his tea and was filling his pipe when Colonel Blount came into the library.

‘Who the devil are you?’ said his host.

‘Adam Symes,’ said Adam.

‘Never heard of you. How did you get in? Who gave you tea? What do you want?’

‘You asked me to luncheon,’ said Adam. ‘I came about being married to Nina.’

‘My dear boy, of course. How absurd of me. I’ve such a bad memory for names. It comes of seeing so few people. How are you?’

They shook hands again.

‘So you’re the young man who’s engaged to Nina,’ said the Colonel, eyeing him for the first time in the way prospective sons-in-laws are supposed to be eyed. ‘Now what in the world do you want to get married for? I shouldn’t, you know, really I shouldn’t. Are you rich?’

‘No, not at present, I’m afraid, that’s rather what I wanted to talk about.’

‘How much money have you got?’

‘Well, sir, actually at the moment I haven’t got any at all.’

‘When did you last have any?’

‘I had a thousand pounds last night, but I gave it all to a drunk Major.’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Well, I hoped he’d put it on Indian Runner for the November Handicap.’

‘Never heard of the horse. Didn’t he?’

‘I don’t think he can have.’

‘When will you next have some money?’

‘When I’ve written some books.’

‘How many books?’

‘Twelve.’

‘How much will you have then?’

‘Probably fifty pounds advance on my thirteenth book.’

‘And how long will it take you to write twelve books?’

‘About a year.’

‘How long would it take most people?’

‘About twenty years. Of course, put like that I do see that it sounds rather hopeless . . . but, you see, Nina and I hoped that you, that is, that perhaps for the next year until I get my twelve books written, that you might help us . . .’

‘How could I help you? I’ve never written a book in my life.’

‘No, we thought you might give us some money.’

‘You thought that, did you?’

‘Yes, that’s what we thought . . .’

Colonel Blount looked at him gravely for some time. Then he said, ‘I think that an admirable idea. I don’t see any reason at all why I shouldn’t. How much do you want?’

‘That’s really terribly good of you, sir . . . Well, you know, just enough to live on quietly for a bit. I hardly know . . .’

‘Well, would a thousand pounds be any help?’

‘Yes, it would indeed. We shall both be terribly grateful.’

‘Not at all, my dear boy. Not at all. What did you say your name was?’

‘Adam Symes.’

Colonel Blount went to the table and wrote out a cheque. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Now don’t go giving that away to another drunk major.’

‘Really, sir! I don’t know how to thank you. Nina . . .’

‘Not another word. Now I expect that you will want to be off to London again. We’ll send Mrs Florin across to the Rectory and make the Rector drive you to the station. Useful having a neighbour with a motor car. They charge fivepence on the buses from here to Aylesbury. _Robbers._’

It does not befall many young men to be given a thousand pounds by a complete stranger twice on successive evenings. Adam laughed aloud in the Rector’s car as they drove to the station. The Rector, who had been in the middle of writing a sermon and resented with daily increasing feeling Colonel Blount’s neighbourly appropriation of his car and himself, kept his eyes fixed on the streaming windscreen, pretending not to notice. Adam laughed all the way to Aylesbury, sitting and holding his knees and shaking all over. The Rector could hardly bring himself to say good-night when they parted in the station yard.

There was half an hour to wait for a train and the leaking roof and wet railway lines had a sobering effect on Adam. He bought an evening paper. On the front page was an exquisitely funny photograph of Miss Runcible in Hawaiian costume tumbling down the steps of No. 10 Downing Street. The Government had fallen that afternoon, he read, being defeated on a motion rising from the answer to a question about the treatment of Miss Runcible by Customs House officers. It was generally held in Parliamentary circles that the deciding factor in this reverse had been the revolt of the Liberals and the Nonconformist members at the revelations of the life that was led at No. 10, Downing Street, during Sir James Brown’s tenancy. The _Evening Mail_ had a leading article, which drew a fine analogy between Public and Domestic Purity, between sobriety in the family and in the State.

There was another small paragraph which interested Adam.

‘_Tragedy in West-End Hotel._

‘_The death occurred early this morning at a private hotel in
Dover Street of Miss Florence Ducane, described as being of
independent means, following an accident in which Miss Ducane
fell from a chandelier which she was attempting to mend. The
inquest will be held to-morrow, which will be followed by the
cremation at Golders Green. Miss Ducane, who was formerly
connected with the stage, was well known in business circles._’

Which only showed, thought Adam, how much better Lottie Crump knew the business of avoiding undesirable publicity than Sir James Brown.

When Adam reached London the rain had stopped, but there was a thin fog drifting in belts before a damp wind. The station was crowded with office workers hurrying with attaché cases and evening papers to catch their evening trains home, coughing and sneezing as they went. They still wore their poppies. Adam went to a telephone-box and rang up Nina. She had left a message for him that she was having cocktails at Margot Metroland’s house. He drove to Shepheard’s.

‘Lottie,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a thousand pounds.’

‘Have you, now,’ said Lottie indifferently. She lived on the assumption that every one she knew always had several thousand pounds. It was to her as though he had said, ‘Lottie, I have a tall hat.’

‘Can you lend me some money till to-morrow till I cash the cheque?’

‘What a boy you are for borrowing. Just like your poor father. Here, you in the corner, lend Mr What-d’you-call-him some money.’

A tall Guardsman shook his retreating forehead and twirled his moustaches.

‘No good coming to me, Lottie,’ he said in a voice trained to command.

‘Mean hound,’ said Lottie. ‘Where’s that American?’

Judge Skimp, who, since his experiences that morning, had become profoundly Anglophile, produced two tenpound notes. ‘I shall be only too proud and honoured . . .’ he said.

‘Good old Judge Thingummy,’ said Lottie. ‘That’s the way.’

Adam hurried out into the hall as another bottle of champagne popped festively in the parlour.

‘Doge, ring up the Daimler Hire Company and order a car in my name. Tell it to go round to Lady Metroland’s—Pastmaster House, Hill Street,’ he said. Then he put on his hat and walked down Hay Hill, swinging an umbrella and laughing again, only more quietly, to himself.

At Lady Metroland’s he kept on his coat and waited in the hall.

‘Will you please tell Miss Blount I’ve called for her? No, I won’t go up.’

He looked at the hats on the table. Clearly there was quite a party. Two or three silk hats of people who had dressed early, the rest soft and black like his own. Then he began to dance again, jigging to himself in simple high spirits.

In a minute Nina came down the broad Adam staircase.

‘Darling, why didn’t you come up? It’s so rude. Margot is longing to see you.’

‘I’m so sorry, Nina. I couldn’t face a party. I’m so excited.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’

‘Everything. I’ll tell you in the car.’

‘Car?’

‘Yes, it’ll be here in a minute. We’re going down to the country for dinner. I can’t tell you how clever I’ve been.’

‘But what have you done, darling? Do stop dancing about.’

‘Can’t stop. You’ve no idea how clever I am.’

‘Adam. Are you tight again?’

‘Look out of the window and see if you can see a Daimler waiting.’

‘Adam, what _have_ you been doing? I will be told.’

‘Look,’ said Adam, producing the cheque. ‘Whatcher think of that?’ he added in Cockney.

‘_My dear_, a thousand pounds. Did papa give you that?’

‘I earned it,’ said Adam. ‘Oh, I earned it. You should have seen the luncheon I ate and the jokes I read. I’m going to be married to-morrow. Oh, Nina, would Margot hate it if I sang in her hall?’

‘She’d simply loathe it, darling, and so should I. I’m going to take care of that cheque. You remember what happened the last time you were given a thousand pounds.’

‘That’s what your papa said.’

‘Did you tell him that?’

‘I told him everything—and he gave me a thousand pounds.’

‘. . . Poor Adam . . .’ said Nina suddenly.

‘Why did you say that?’

‘I don’t know. . . . I believe this is your car. . . .’

‘Nina, why did you say “Poor Adam”?’

‘. . . Did I? . . . Oh, I don’t know. . . . Oh, I do adore you so.’

‘I’m going to be married to-morrow. Are you?’

‘Yes, I expect so, dear.’

The chauffeur got rather bored while they tried to decide where they would dine. At every place he suggested they gave a little wail of dismay. ‘But that’s sure to be full of awful people we know,’ they said. Maidenhead, Thame, Brighton, he suggested. Finally they decided to go to Arundel.

‘It’ll be nearly nine before we get there,’ the chauffeur said. ‘Now there’s a very nice hotel at Bray. . . .’

But they went to Arundel.

‘We’ll be married to-morrow,’ said Adam in the car. ‘And we won’t ask anybody to the wedding at all. And we’ll go abroad at once, and just not come back till I’ve written all those books. Nina, isn’t it divine? Where shall we go?’

‘Anywhere you like, only rather warm, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t believe you really think we are going to be married, Nina, do you, or do you?’

‘I don’t know . . . it’s only that I don’t believe that really divine things like that ever do happen. . . . I don’t know why. . . . Oh, I do like you so much to-night. If only you _knew_ how sweet you looked skipping about in Margot’s hall all by yourself. I’d been watching you for hours before I came down.’

‘I shall send the car back,’ said Adam, as they drove through Pulborough. ‘We can go home by train.’

‘If there is a train.’

‘There’s bound to be,’ said Adam. But this raised a question in both their minds that had been unobtrusively agitating them throughout the journey. Neither said any more on the subject, but there was a distinct air of constraint in the Daimler from Pulborough onwards.

This question was settled when they reached the hotel at Arundel.

‘We want dinner,’ said Adam, ‘and a room for the night.’

‘_Darling_, am I going to be seduced?’

‘I’m afraid you are. Do you mind terribly?’

‘Not as much as all that,’ said Nina, and added in Cockney, ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’

Every one had finished dinner. They dined alone in a corner of the coffee-room, while the other waiters laid the tables for breakfast, looking at them resentfully. It was the dreariest kind of English dinner. After dinner the lounge was awful; there were some golfers in dinner-jackets playing bridge, and two old ladies. Adam and Nina went across the stable-yard to the tap-room and sat until closing time in a warm haze of tobacco smoke listening to the intermittent gossip of the towns-people. They sat hand-in-hand, unembarrassed; after the first minute no one noticed them. Just before closing time Adam stood a round of drinks. They said:

‘Good health, sir. Best respects, madam,’ and the barman said, ‘Come along, please. Finish your drinks, please,’ in a peculiar sing-song tone.

There was a clock chiming as they crossed the yard and a slightly drunk farmer trying to start up his car. Then they went up an oak staircase lined with blunderbusses and coaching prints to their room.

They had no luggage (the chambermaid remarked on this next day to the young man who worked at the wireless shop, saying that that was the worst of being in a main road hotel. You got all sorts).

Adam undressed very quickly and got into bed; Nina more slowly arranging her clothes on the chair and fingering the ornaments on the chimney-piece with less than her usual self-possession. At last she put out the light.

‘Do you know,’ she said, trembling slightly as she got into bed, ‘this is the first time this has happened to me?’

‘It’s great fun,’ said Adam, ‘I promise you.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ said Nina seriously, ‘I wasn’t saying anything against it. I was only saying that it hadn’t happened before. . . . Oh, Adam. . . .’

‘And you said that really divine things didn’t happen,’ said Adam in the middle of the night.

‘I don’t think that this is at all divine,’ said Nina. ‘It’s given me a pain. And—my dear, that reminds me. I’ve something terribly important to say to you in the morning.’

‘What?’

‘Not now, darling. Let’s go to sleep for a little, don’t you think?’

Before Nina was properly awake Adam dressed and went out into the rain to get a shave. He came back bringing two toothbrushes and a bright red celluloid comb. Nina sat up in bed and combed her hair. She put Adam’s coat over her back.

‘My dear, you look exactly like _La Vie Parisienne_,’ said Adam, turning round from brushing his teeth.

Then she threw off the coat and jumped out of bed, and he told her that she looked like a fashion drawing without the clothes. Nina was rather pleased about that, but she said that it was cold and that she still had a pain, only not so bad as it was. Then she dressed and they went downstairs.

Every one else had had breakfast and the waiters were laying the tables for luncheon.

‘By the way,’ said Adam. ‘You said there was something you wanted to say.’

‘Oh, yes, so there is. My dear, something quite awful.’

‘Do tell me.’

‘Well, it’s about that cheque papa gave you. I’m afraid it won’t help us as much as you thought.’

‘But, darling, it’s a thousand pounds, isn’t it?’

‘Just look at it, my sweet.’ She took it out of her bag and handed it across the table.

‘I don’t see anything wrong with it,’ said Adam.

‘Not the signature?’

‘Why, good lord, the old idiot’s signed it “Charlie Chaplin”.’

‘That’s what I mean, darling.’

‘But can’t we get him to alter it? He must be dotty. I’ll go down and see him again to-day.’

‘I shouldn’t do that, dear . . . don’t you see. . . . Of course, he’s very old, and . . . I dare say you may have made things sound a little odd . . . don’t you think, dear, _he_ must have thought _you_ a little dotty? . . . I mean . . . perhaps . . . that cheque was a kind of joke.’

‘Well I’m damned . . . this really is a bore. When everything seemed to be going so well, too. When did you notice the signature, Nina?’

‘As soon as you showed it to me, at Margot’s. Only you looked so happy I didn’t like to say anything. . . . You did look happy, you know, Adam, and so sweet. I think I really fell in love with you for the first time when I saw you dancing all alone in the hall.’

‘Well I’m damned,’ said Adam again. ‘The old devil.’

‘Anyway, you’ve had some fun out of it, haven’t you . . . or haven’t you?’

‘Haven’t _you_?’

‘My dear, I never hated anything so much in my life . . . still, as long as you enjoyed it that’s something.’

‘I say, Nina,’ said Adam after some time, ‘we shan’t be able to get married after all.’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘It _is_ a bore, isn’t it?’

Later he said, ‘I expect that parson thought I was dotty too.’

And later, ‘As a matter of fact, it’s rather a good joke, don’t you think?’

‘I think it’s divine.’

In the train Nina said: ‘It’s awful to think that I shall probably never, as long as I live, see you dancing like that again all by yourself.’

_Chapter Six_

That evening Lady Metroland gave a party for Mrs Melrose Ape. Adam found the telegram of invitation waiting for him on his return to Shepheard’s. (Lottie had already used the prepaid reply to do some betting with. Some one had given her a tip for the November Handicap and she wanted to ‘make her little flutter’ before she forgot the name.) He also found an invitation to luncheon from Simon Balcairn.

The food at Shepheard’s tends to be mostly game-pie—quite black inside and full of beaks and shot and inexplicable vertebræ—so Adam was quite pleased to lunch with Simon Balcairn, though he knew there must be some slightly sinister motive behind this sudden hospitality.

They lunched _Chez Espinosa_, the second most expensive restaurant in London; it was full of oilcloth and Lalique glass, and the sort of people who liked that sort of thing went there continually and said how awful it was.

‘I hope you don’t mind coming to this awful restaurant,’ said Balcairn. ‘The truth is that I get meals free if I mention them occasionally in my page. Not drinks, unfortunately. Who’s here, Alphonse?’ he asked the _maître d’hôtel_.

Alphonse handed him the typewritten slip that was always kept for gossip writers.

‘H’m, yes. Quite a good list this morning, Alphonse. I’ll do what I can about it.’

‘Thank you, sir. A table for two? A cocktail?’

‘No, I don’t think I want a cocktail. I really haven’t time. Will you have one, Adam? They aren’t very good here.’

‘No, thanks,’ said Adam.

‘Sure?’ said Balcairn, already making for their table.

When they were being helped to caviare he looked at the wine list.

‘The lager is rather good,’ he said. ‘What would you like to drink?’

‘Whatever you’re having. . . . I think some lager would be lovely.’

‘Two small bottles of lager, please. . . . Are you sure you really like that better than anything?’

‘Yes, really, thank you.’

Simon Balcairn looked about him gloomily, occasionally adding a new name to his list. (It is so depressing to be in a profession in which literally all conversation is ‘shop’.)

Presently he said, with a deadly air of carelessness:

‘Margot Metroland’s got a party to-night, hasn’t she? Are you going?’

‘I think probably. I usually like Margot’s parties, don’t you?’

‘Yes. . . . Adam, I’ll tell you a very odd thing. She hasn’t sent me an invitation to this one.’

‘I expect she will. I only got mine this morning.’

‘. . . Yes . . . who’s that woman just come in in the fur coat? I know her so well by sight.’

‘Isn’t it Lady Everyman?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Another name was added to the list. Balcairn paused in utmost gloom and ate some salad. ‘The thing is . . . she told Agatha Runcible she wasn’t _going_ to ask me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Apparently she’s in a rage about something I said about something she said about Miles.’

‘People do take things so seriously,’ said Adam encouragingly.

‘It means ruin for me,’ said Lord Balcairn. ‘Isn’t that Pamela Popham?’

‘I haven’t the least idea.’

‘I’m sure it is . . . I must look up the spelling in the stud book when I get back. I got into awful trouble about spelling the other day. . . . Ruin. . . . She’s asked Vanburgh.’

‘Well, he’s some sort of cousin, isn’t he?’

‘It’s so damned unfair. All my cousins are in lunatic asylums or else they live in the country and do indelicate things with wild animals . . . Except my mamma, and that’s worse . . . they were furious at the office about Van getting that Downing Street “scoop”. If I miss this party I may as well leave Fleet Street for good . . . I may as well put my head into a gas-oven and have done with it . . . I’m sure if Margot knew how much it meant to me she wouldn’t mind my coming.’

Great tears stood in his eyes threatening to overflow.

‘All this last week,’ he said, ‘I’ve been reduced to making up my page from the Court Circular and Debrett . . . No one ever asks me anywhere now . . .’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Adam, ‘I know Margot pretty well. If you like I’ll ring her up and ask if I may bring you.’

‘Will you? Will you, Adam? If only you really would. Let’s go and do it at once. We’ve no time for coffee or liqueurs. Quick, we can telephone from my office . . . yes, that black hat and my umbrella, no, I’ve lost the number . . . there, no, there, oh do hurry. . . . Yes, a taxi . . .’

They were out in the street and into a taxi before Adam had time to say any more. Soon they were imbedded in a traffic block in the Strand, and after a time they reached Balcairn’s office in Fleet Street.

They went up to a tiny room with ‘Social’ written on the glass of the door. Its interior seemed not to justify its name. There was one chair, a typewriter, a telephone, some books of reference and a considerable litter of photographs. Balcairn’s immediate superior sat in the one chair.

‘Hullo,’ she said. ‘So you’re back. Where you been?’

‘Espinosa. Here’s the list.’

The social editress read it through. ‘Can’t have Kitty Blackwater,’ she said. ‘Had her yesterday. Others’ll do. Write ’em down to a couple of paragraphs. Suppose you didn’t notice what they were wearing?’

‘Yes,’ said Balcairn eagerly. ‘All of them.’

‘Well, you won’t have room to use it. We got to keep everything down for Lady M.’s party. I’ve cut out the D. of Devonshire altogether. By the way, the photograph you used yesterday wasn’t the present Countess of Everyman. It’s an old one of the Dowager. We had ’em both on the ’phone about it, going on something awful. That’s _you_, again. Got your invite for to-night?’

‘Not yet.’

‘You better get it quick. I got to have a first-hand story before we go to press, see? By the way, know anything about this? Lady R.’s maid sent it in to-day.’ She picked up a slip of paper: ‘“Rumoured engagement broken off between Adam Fenwick-Symes, only son of the late Professor Oliver Fenwick-Symes, and Nina Blount, of Doubting Hall, Aylesbury.” Never heard of either. Ain’t even been announced, so far as I’m aware of.’

‘You’d better ask him. This is Adam Symes.’

‘Hullo, no offence meant, I’m sure. . . . What about it?’

‘It is neither announced nor broken off.’

‘N.B.G. in fact, eh? Then _that_ goes _there_.’ She put the slip into the wastepaper basket. ‘That girl’s sent us a lot of bad stuff lately. Well, I’m off for a bit of lunch. I’ll be over at the Garden Club if anything urgent turns up. So long.’

The editress went out, banging the door labelled ‘Social’, and whistled as she went down the passage.

‘You see how they treat me,’ said Lord Balcairn. ‘They were all over me when I first arrived. I do so wish I were dead.’

‘Don’t cry,’ said Adam, ‘it’s too shy-making.’

‘I can’t help it . . . oh, do come in.’

The door marked ‘Social’ opened and a small boy came in.

‘Lord Circumference’s butler downstairs with some engagements and a divorce.’

‘Tell him to leave them.’

‘Very good, my lord.’

‘That’s the only person in this office who’s ever polite to me,’ said Balcairn as the messenger disappeared. ‘I wish I had something to leave him in my will. . . . Do ring up Margot. Then I shall at any rate know the worst. . . . Come in.’

‘Gentleman of the name of General Strapper downstairs. Wants to see you very particular.’

‘What about?’

‘Couldn’t say, my lord, but he’s got a whip. Seems very put out about something.’

‘Tell him the social editor is having luncheon. . . . Do ring up Margot.’

Adam said, ‘Margot, may I bring some one with me to-night?’

‘Well, Adam, I really don’t think you can. I can’t imagine how everyone’s going to get in as it is. I’m terribly sorry, who is it?’

‘Simon Balcairn. He’s particularly anxious to come.’

‘I dare say he is. I’m rather against that young man. He’s written things about me in the papers.’

‘_Please_, Margot.’

‘Certainly not. I won’t have him inside my house. I’ve only asked Van on the strictest understanding that he doesn’t write anything about it. I don’t wish to have anything more to do with Simon Balcairn.’

‘My dear, how _rich_ you sound.’

‘I feel my full income when that young man is mentioned. Good-bye. See you to-night.’

‘You needn’t tell me,’ said Balcairn. ‘I know what she’s said . . . it’s no good, is it?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Done for . . .’ said Balcairn. ‘. . . End of the tether. . . .’ He turned over some slips of paper listlessly. ‘Would it interest you to hear that Agatha and Archie are engaged?’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Neither do I. One of our people has just sent it in. Half of what they send us is lies, and the other half libel . . . they sent us a long story about Miles and Pamela Popham having spent last night at Arundel. . . . But we couldn’t use it even if it were true, which it obviously isn’t, knowing Miles. Thank you for doing what you could . . . good-bye.’

Downstairs in the outer office there was an altercation in progress. A large man of military appearance was shaking and stamping in front of a middle-aged woman. Adam recognized the social editress.

‘Answer me, yes or no,’ the big man was saying. ‘Are you or are you not responsible for this damnable lie about my daughter?’

(He had read in Simon Balcairn’s column that his daughter had been seen at a night club. To any one better acquainted with Miss Strapper’s habits of life the paragraph was particularly reticent.)

‘Yes, or no,’ cried the General, ‘or I’ll shake the life out of you.’

‘No.’

‘Then who is? Let me get hold of the cad who wrote it. Where is he?’ roared the General.

‘Upstairs,’ the social editress managed to say.

‘More trouble for Simon,’ thought Adam.

Adam went to pick Nina up at her flat. They had arranged to go to a cinema together. She said, ‘You’re much later than you said. It’s so boring to be late for a talkie.’

He said, ‘Talkies are boring, anyhow.’

They treated each other quite differently after their night’s experiences. Adam was inclined to be egotistical and despondent; Nina was rather grown-up and disillusioned and distinctly cross. Adam began to say that as far as he could see he would have to live on at Shepheard’s now for the rest of his life, or at any rate for the rest of Lottie’s life, as it wouldn’t be fair to leave without paying the bill.

Then Nina said, ‘Do be amusing, Adam. I can’t bear you when you’re not amusing.’

Then Adam began to tell her about Simon Balcairn and Margot’s party. He described how he had seen Simon being horse-whipped in the middle of the office.

Nina said, ‘Yes, that’s amusing. Go on like that.’

The story of Simon’s whipping lasted them all the way to the cinema. They were very late for the film Nina wanted to see, and that set them back again. They didn’t speak for a long time. Then Nina said _à propos_ of the film, ‘All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I’d sooner go to my dentist any day.’

Adam said, ‘You’ll enjoy it more next time.’

Nina said, ‘_Next time_,’ and told him that he took too much for granted.

Adam said that was a phrase which only prostitutes used.

Then they started a real quarrel which lasted all through the film and all the way to Nina’s flat and all the time she was cutting up a lemon and making a cocktail, until Adam said that if she didn’t stop going on he would ravish her there and then on her own hearthrug.

Then Nina went on.

But by the time that Adam went to dress she had climbed down enough to admit that perhaps love was a thing one could grow to be fond of after a time, like smoking a pipe. Still she maintained that it made one feel very ill at first, and she doubted if it was worth it.

Then they began to argue at the top of the lift about whether acquired tastes were ever worth acquiring. Adam said it was imitation, and that it was natural to man to be imitative, so that acquired tastes were natural.

But the presence of the lift boy stopped that argument coming to a solution as the other had done.

‘My, ain’t this classy,’ said Divine Discontent.

‘It’s all right,’ said Chastity in a worldly voice. ‘Nothing to make a song and dance about.’

‘Who’s making a song and dance? I just said it was classy—and it _is_ classy, ain’t it?’

‘I suppose everything’s classy to _some_ people.’

‘Now you two,’ said Temperance, who had been put in charge of the angels for the evening, ‘don’t you start anything in here, not with your wings on. Mrs Ape won’t stand for scrapping in wings, and you know it.’

‘Who’s starting anything?’

‘Well, you are then.’

‘Oh, it’s no use talking to Chastity. She’s too high and mighty to be an angel now. Went out for a drive with Mrs Panrast in a Rolls Royce,’ said Fortitude. ‘I saw her. I was so sorry it rained all the time, or it might have been quite enjoyable, mightn’t it, Chastity?’

‘Well, you ought to be glad. Leaves the _men_ for you, Fortitude. Only they don’t seem to want to take advantage, do they?’

Then they talked about men for some time. Divine Discontent thought the second footman had nice eyes.

‘And he knows it,’ said Temperance.

They were all having supper together in what was still called the schoolroom in Lady Metroland’s house. From the window they could see the guests arriving for the party. In spite of the rain quite a large crowd had collected on either side of the awning to criticize the cloaks with appreciative ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ or contemptuous sniffs. Cars and taxis drove up in close succession. Lady Circumference splashed up the street in goloshes, wearing a high fender of diamonds under a tartan umbrella. The Bright Young People came popping all together, out of some one’s electric brougham like a litter of pigs, and ran squealing up the steps. Some ‘gate-crashers’ who had made the mistake of coming in Victorian fancy dress were detected and repulsed. They hurried home to change for a second assault. No one wanted to miss Mrs Ape’s _début_.

But the angels were rather uneasy. They had been dressed ever since seven o’clock in their white shifts, gold sashes and wings. It was now past ten, and the strain was beginning to tell, for it was impossible to sit back comfortably in wings.

‘Oh, I wish they’d hurry up so we could get it over,’ said Creative Endeavour. ‘Mrs Ape said we could have some champagne afterwards if we sang nice.’

‘I don’t mind betting _she’s_ doing herself pretty well, down there.’

‘_Chastity!_’

‘Oh, _all_ right.’

Then the footman with the nice eyes came to clear the table. He gave them a friendly wink as he shut the door. ‘Pretty creatures,’ he thought. ‘Blooming shame that they’re so religious . . . wasting the best years of their lives.’

(There had been a grave debate in the servants’ hall about the exact status of angels. Even Mr Blenkinsop, the butler, had been uncertain. ‘Angels are certainly not guests,’ he had said, ‘and I don’t think they are deputations. Nor they ain’t governesses either, nor clergy not strictly speaking; they’re not entertainers, because entertainers _dine_ nowadays, the more’s the pity.’

‘I believe they’re decorators,’ said Mrs Blouse, ‘or else charitable workers.’

‘Charitable workers are governesses, Mrs Blouse. There is nothing to be gained by multiplying social distinctions indefinitely. Decorators are either guests or workmen.’

After further discussion the conclusion was reached that angels were nurses, and that became the official ruling of the household. But the second footman was of the opinion that they were ‘young persons’, pure and simple, ‘and very nice too’, for nurses cannot, except in very rare cases, be winked at, and clearly angels could.)

‘What we want to know, Chastity,’ said Creative Endeavour, ‘is how you come to take up with Mrs Panrast at all.’

‘Yes,’ said the Angels, ‘yes. It’s not like _you_, Chastity, to go riding in a motor car with a woman.’ They fluttered their feathers in a menacing way. ‘Let’s third-degree her,’ said Humility with rather nasty relish.

(There was a system of impromptu jurisdiction among the Angels which began with innuendo, went on to crossexamination, pinches and slaps and ended, as a rule, in tears and kisses.)

Faced by this circle of spiteful and haloed faces, Chastity began to lose her air of superiority.

‘Why shouldn’t I ride with a friend,’ she asked plaintively, ‘without all you girls pitching on me like this?’

‘_Friend_,’ said Creative Endeavour. ‘You never saw her before to-day,’ and she gave her a nasty pinch just above the elbow.

‘_Ooooh!_’ said Chastity. ‘_OOh, please_ . . . beast.’

Then they all pinched her all over, but precisely and judiciously, so as not to disturb her wings or halo, for this was no orgy (sometimes in their bedrooms, they gave way, but not here, in Lady Metroland’s schoolroom, before an important first night).

‘Ooh,’ said Chastity, ‘_OOh, ow, ooh, ow. Please_, beasts, swine, cads . . . _please_ . . . oh . . . well, if you must know, I thought she _was_ a man.’

‘Thought she was a _man_, Chastity? That doesn’t sound right to me.’

‘Well, she looks like a man and—and she _goes on_ like a man. I saw her sitting at a table in a tea-shop. She hadn’t got a hat on, and I couldn’t see her skirt . . . ooh . . . how can I tell you if you keep pinching . . . and she smiled and so, well, I went and had some tea with her, and she said would I go out with her in her motor car, and I said yes and, ooh, I wish I hadn’t now.’

‘What did she say in the motor car, Chastity?’

‘I forget—nothing much.’

‘Oh, what.’ ‘Do tell us.’ ‘We’ll never pinch you again if you tell us.’ ‘I’m sorry if I hurt you, Chastity, do tell _me_.’ ‘You’d _better_ tell us.’

‘No, I can’t, _really_—I don’t remember, I tell you.’

‘Give her another little nip, girls.’

‘Ooh, ooh, ooh, _stop_. I’ll tell you.’

Their heads were close together and they were so deeply engrossed in the story that they did not hear Mrs Ape’s entry.

‘Smut again,’ said a terrible voice. ‘Girls, I’m sick ashamed of you.’

Mrs Ape looked magnificent in a gown of heavy gold brocade embroidered with texts.

‘I’m sick ashamed of you,’ repeated Mrs Ape, ‘and you’ve made Chastity cry again, just before the big act. If you must bully some one, _why_ choose Chastity? You all know by this time that crying always gives her a red nose. How do _I_ look, I should like to know, standing up in front of a lot of angels with red noses. You don’t ever think of nothing but your own pleasures, do you? _Sluts._’ This last word was spoken with a depth of expression that set the angels trembling. ‘There’ll be no champagne for any one to-night, see. And if you don’t sing perfectly, I’ll give the whole lot of you a good hiding, see. Now, come on, now, and for the love of the Lamb, Chastity, _do something to your nose_. They’ll think it’s a temperance meeting to see you like that.’

It was a brilliant scene into which the disconsolate angels trooped two minutes later. Margot Metroland shook hands with each of them as they came to the foot of the staircase, appraising them, one by one, with an expert eye.

‘You don’t look happy, my dear,’ she found time to say to Chastity, as she led them across the ballroom to their platform, banked in orchids at the far end. ‘If you feel you want a change, let me know later, and I can get you a job in South America. _I mean it._’

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Chastity, ‘but I could never leave Mrs Ape.’

‘Well, think it over, child. You’re far too pretty a girl to waste your time singing hymns. Tell that other girl, the red-headed one, that I can probably find a place for her, too.’

‘What, Humility? Don’t you have nothing to do with her. She’s a fiend.’

‘Well, some men like rough stuff, but I don’t want any one who makes trouble with the other girls.’

‘She makes trouble all right. Look at that bruise.’

‘My dear!’

Margot Metroland and Mrs Ape led the angels up the steps between the orchids and stood them at the back of the platform facing the room. Chastity stood next to Creative Endeavour.

‘Please, Chastity, I’m sorry if we hurt you,’ said Creative Endeavour. ‘I didn’t pinch hard, did I?’

‘Yes,’ said Chastity. ‘Like hell you did.’

A slightly sticky hand tried to take hers, but she clenched her fist. She would go to South America and work for Lady Metroland . . . and she wouldn’t say anything about it to Humility either. She glared straight in front of her, saw Mrs Panrast and dropped her eyes.

The ballroom was filled with little gilt chairs and the chairs with people. Lord Vanburgh, conveniently seated near the door, through which he could slip away to the telephone, was taking them all in. They were almost all, in some way or another, notable. The motives for Margot Metroland’s second marriage[B] had been mixed, but entirely worldly; chief among them had been the desire to reestablish her somewhat shaken social position, and her party that night testified to her success, for while many people can entertain the Prime Minister and the Duchess of Stayle and Lady Circumference, and anybody can, and often against her will does, entertain Miles Malpractice and Agatha Runcible, it is only a very confident hostess who will invite both these sets together at the same time, differing, as they do, upon almost all questions of principle and deportment. Standing near Vanburgh, by the door, was a figure who seemed in himself to typify the change that had come over Pastmaster House when Margot Beste-Chetwynd became Lady Metroland; an unobtrusive man of rather less than average height, whose black beard, falling in tight burnished curls, nearly concealed the order of St Michael and St George which he wore round his neck; he wore a large signet ring on the little finger of his left hand outside his white glove; there was an orchid in his buttonhole. His eyes, youthful but grave, wandered among the crowd; occasionally he bowed with grace and decision. Several people were asking about him.

-----

[B] See _Decline and Fall_.

-----

‘See the beaver with the medal,’ said Humility to Faith.

‘Who is that _very_ important young man?’ asked Mrs Blackwater of Lady Throbbing.

‘I don’t know, dear. He bowed to _you_.’

‘He bowed to _you_, dear.’

‘How very nice . . . I wasn’t quite sure. . . . He reminds me a little of dear Prince Anrep.’

‘It’s so nice in these days, isn’t it, dearest, to see some one who really looks . . . don’t you think?’

‘You mean the beard?’

‘_The beard among other things_, darling.’

Father Rothschild was conspiring with Mr Outrage and Lord Metroland. He stopped short in the middle of his sentence.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but there are spies everywhere. That man with the beard, do you know him?’

Lord Metroland thought vaguely he had something to do with the Foreign Office; Mr Outrage seemed to remember having seen him before.

‘_Exactly_,’ said Father Rothschild. ‘I think it would be better if we continued our conversation in private. I have been watching him. _He is bowing across the room to empty places and to people whose backs are turned to him._’ The Great Men withdrew to Lord Metroland’s study. Father Rothschild closed the door silently and looked behind the curtains.

‘Shall I lock the door?’ asked Lord Metroland.

‘No,’ said the Jesuit. ‘A lock does not prevent a spy from hearing; but it does hinder us, inside, from catching the spy.’

‘Well, I should never have thought of that,’ said Mr Outrage in frank admiration.

‘How pretty Nina Blount is,’ said Lady Throbbing, busy from the front row with her lorgnette, ‘but don’t you think, a little changed; almost as though . . .’

‘You notice everything, darling.’

‘When you get to our age, dear, there is so little left, but I do believe Miss Blount must have had an _experience_ . . . she’s sitting next to Miles. You know I heard from Edward to-night. He’s on his way back. It will be a great blow for Miles because he’s been living in Edward’s house all this time. To tell you the truth I’m a little glad because from what I hear from Anne Opalthorpe, who lives opposite, the things that go on . . . he’s got a friend staying there now. Such an odd man—a dirt-track racer. But then it’s no use attempting to disguise the fact, is there. . . . There’s Mrs Panrast . . . yes, dear, of course you know her, she used to be Eleanor Balcairn . . . now _why_ does dear Margot ask any one like that, do you think? . . . it is not as though Margot was so innocent . . . and there’s Lord Monomark . . . yes, the man who owns those _amusing_ papers . . . they say that he and Margot, but _before_ her marriage, of course (her second marriage, I mean), but you never know, do you, how things _crop_ up again? . . . I wonder where Peter Pastmaster is? . . . he never stays to Margot’s parties . . . he was at dinner, of course, and, my dear, _how_ he drank. . . . He can’t be more than twenty-one. . . . Oh, so that is Mrs Ape. What a coarse face . . . no dear, of course she can’t hear . . . she looks like a _procureuse_ . . . but perhaps I shouldn’t say that _here_, should I?’

Adam came and sat next to Nina.

‘Hullo,’ they said to each other.

‘My dear, do look at Mary Mouse’s new young man,’ said Nina.

Adam looked and saw that Mary was sitting next to the Maharajah of Pukkapore.

‘I call that a pretty pair,’ he said.

‘Oh, how bored I feel,’ said Nina.

Mr Benfleet was there talking to two poets. They said ‘. . . and I wrote to tell William that I didn’t write the review, but it was true that Tony did read me the review over the telephone when I was very sleepy before he sent it in. I thought it was best to tell him the truth because he would hear it from Tony anyway. Only I said I advised him not to publish it just as I had advised William not to publish the book in the first place. Well Tony rang up Michael and told him that I’d said that William thought Michael had written the review because of the reviews I had written of Michael’s book last November, though, as a matter of fact, it was Tony himself who wrote it. . . .’

‘Too bad,’ said Mr Benfleet. ‘Too bad.’

‘. . . but is that any reason, even if I had written it, why Michael should tell Tony that I had stolen five pounds from William?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Mr Benfleet. ‘Too bad.’

‘Of course, they’re _simply_ not _gentlemen_, either of them. That’s all it is, only one’s shy of saying it nowadays.’

Mr Benfleet shook his head sadly and sympathetically.

Then Mrs Melrose Ape stood up to speak. A hush fell in the gilt ballroom beginning at the back and spreading among the chairs until only Mrs Blackwater’s voice was heard exquisitely articulating some details of Lady Metroland’s past. Then she, too, was silent and Mrs Ape began her oration about Hope.

‘Brothers and Sisters,’ she said in a hoarse, stirring voice. Then she paused and allowed her eyes, renowned throughout three continents for their magnetism, to travel among the gilded chairs. (It was one of her favourite openings.) ‘_Just you look at yourselves_,’ she said.

Magically, self-doubt began to spread in the audience. Mrs Panrast stirred uncomfortably; had that silly little girl been talking, she wondered.

‘Darling,’ whispered Miss Runcible, ‘is my nose awful?’

Nina thought how once, only twenty-four hours ago, she had been in love. Mr Benfleet thought should he have made it three per cent. on the tenth thousand. The gate-crashers wondered whether it would not have been better to have stayed at home. (Once in Kansas City Mrs Ape had got no further than these opening words; there had been a tornado of emotion and all the seats in the hall had been broken to splinters. It was there that Humility had joined the Angels.) There were a thousand things in Lady Throbbing’s past. . . . Every heart found something to bemoan.

‘She’s got ’em again,’ whispered Creative Endeavour. ‘Got ’em stiff.’

Lord Vanburgh slipped from the room to telephone through some racy paragraphs about fashionable piety.

Mary Mouse shed two little tears and felt for the brown, bejewelled hand of the Maharajah.

But suddenly on that silence vibrant with self-accusation broke the organ voice of England, the hunting-cry of the _ancien régime_. Lady Circumference gave a resounding snort of disapproval:

‘What a damned impudent woman,’ she said.

Adam and Nina and Miss Runcible began to giggle, and Margot Metroland for the first time in her many parties was glad to realize that the guest of the evening was going to be a failure. It had been an awkward moment.

In the study Father Rothschild and Mr Outrage were plotting with enthusiasm. Lord Metroland was smoking a cigar and wondering how soon he could get away. He wanted to hear Mrs Ape and to have another look at those Angels. There was one with red hair. . . . Besides all this statesmanship and foreign policy had always bored him. In his years in the Commons he had always liked a good scrap, and often thought a little wistfully of those orgies of competitive dissimulation in which he had risen to eminence. Even now, when some straightforward, easily intelligible subject was under discussion, such as poor people’s wages or public art, he enjoyed from time to time making a sonorous speech to the Upper House. But this sort of thing was not at all in his line.

Suddenly Father Rothschild turned out the light.

‘There’s some one coming down the passage,’ he said.

‘Quick, get behind the curtains.’

‘Really, Rothschild . . .’ said Mr Outrage.

‘I say . . .’ said Lord Metroland.

‘_Quick_,’ said Father Rothschild.

The three statesmen hid themselves. Lord Metroland, still smoking, his head thrown back and his cigar erect. They heard the door open. The light was turned on. A match was struck. Then came the slight tinkle of the telephone as someone lifted the receiver.

‘Central ten thousand,’ said a slightly muffled voice.

‘_Now_,’ said Father Rothschild, and stepped through the curtain.

The bearded stranger who had excited his suspicions was standing at the table smoking one of Lord Metroland’s cigars and holding the telephone.

‘Oh, hullo,’ he said, ‘I didn’t know you were here. Just thought I’d use the telephone. So sorry. Won’t disturb you. Jolly party, isn’t it? Good-bye.’

‘Stay exactly where you are,’ said Father Rothschild, ‘and take off that beard.’

‘Damned if I do,’ said the stranger crossly. ‘It’s no use talking to me as though I were one of your choir boys . . . you old _bully_.’

‘Take off that beard,’ said Father Rothschild.

‘Take off that beard,’ said Lord Metroland and the Prime Minister, emerging suddenly from behind the curtain.

This concurrence of Church and State, coming so unexpectedly after an evening of prolonged embarrassment, was too much for Simon.

‘Oh, all right,’ he said, ‘if you _will_ make such a _thing_ about it . . . it hurts too frightfully, if you knew . . . it ought to be soaked in hot water . . . ooh . . . ow.’

He gave some tugs at the black curls, and bit by bit they came away.