FRIENDS AND LOVERS
by
HELEN MACINNES

Available in Fontana by the same author '

Pray for a Brave Heart ; Above

Suspicion ;

Assignment in Brittany

The Unconquerable Decision at Delphi ;

The Double Image ;

I and my True Love

North from Rome

The Salzburg Connection

The Venetian Affair

HELEN MACINNES

Friends and Lovers

First published by Geo. G. Harrap & Co.
Ltd .1948 First issued in Fontana Books 1972 Second Impression June 1972
Copyright. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain Collins Clear-Type
Press London and Glasgow

TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER

WITH MY ADMIRATION AND LOVE

All incidents and characters in this novel are entirely fictitious, and no
reference is intended to any actual person, whether living or dead

CONDITIONS OF SALE:

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade
or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the
publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Chapter One.

THE FOREIGNERS COME TO INCHNAMURREN.

The morning mist had cleared. Now a fresh wind was blowing, curling the
edges of the waves, touching them lightly with flecks of white.

The sea had lost its cold grey look; the blue waters were a darker
reflection of the smiling sky, intensifying its colour and emotion by
their great depths. The mainland, wide stretches of heather and bracken
sloping down from barren hills, ended abruptly in red granite cliffs. On
this part of the coast there was no sea loch or ragged inlet to distract
the swiftly moving tide in its course between the mainland and the
scattered islands. There was no sign of house or croft. There was
nothing but the uneven hills, silent, watchful, folding eastward, one
behind the other. To the west and north and south was the Atlantic, with
the lonely islands jutting out of its deep waters to break the force of
its rolling waves and turn them into swirling currents.

The men in the boat--single-sailed and small, speeding swiftly with the
wind and racing tide--had not spoken since they had left Loch Inrush, on
the mainland. But then, David Bosworth thought, this was the kind of
place where conversation was hardly necessary. He was content to watch
the wide-winged gulls wheeling overhead.

George Fenton-Stevens, who was standing upright with an arm hooked round
the mast, oblivious to wind or spray or gulls, suddenly looked down at
David, sitting securely in the well of the boat.

"What do you think of all this, David?" There was a smile of enjoyment
on his face, possessive pride in his voice.

David studied Fenton-Stevens for a moment before he replied. Perhaps if
he waited long enough no reply would be necessary. George's eyes and
attention were once more fixed on the islands lying ahead of them. When
in Rome, David was reflecting, old George could always be counted on
doing more than the Romans did. In Oxford, for instance, George wore
more twists of scarf round his neck, trousers both baggier and more
stained, a gown torn into more tatters, than the usual undergraduate
adopted. In London, at Christmas, he had appeared more Foreign Office
than Anthony Eden; never had there been so black a hat, so neat an
umbrella, such impeccable shoes and gloves. And now, in the Western
Highlands of Scotland, he was the Celtic sea-reiver standing proudly
before the mast as his ship bore down on an unsuspecting island.

"What do you think of it?" George asked again.

David buried his chin in the upturned collar of his jacket as he tried
to avoid a sudden shower of cold sea water.

"Ninth century," he answered.

"Definitely. Kishmul's galley and all. If I could see properly'--and he
wiped the spray ostentatiously from his brows" --I could perhaps give
you the decade as well."

George relaxed noticeably, and his very Anglo-Saxon chin was less
pointed towards the prow.

"I hadn't thought of that," he said, 'but it is ninth century. Nothing
has changed. This sea --and these hills." His flight of fantasy failed,
and he was left with embarrassment. He sat down beside David Bosworth.

"That's better," David said.

"With you swaying up there above me I couldn't concentrate on
equilibrium."

George was watching him with amusement. And the red- bearded Highlander
sitting at the stern gave almost a smile. In all the jokes against
oneself, David thought, there was always a particle of truth.

Ever since they had left the shelter of Loch Innish his mind had been
persuading his stomach that this was all perfectly normal, and was even
considered enjoyable by some. But it was difficult to forget the hideous
groaning of the wooden planks, the laboured creaking of the mast, or the
pool of water washing about in the bottom of the boat.

All quite normal, of course, if you were accustomed to this kind of
thing.

There's Inchnamurren," George said suddenly, and pointed to the larger
of two islands lying close together. For company, David thought; they
would need that in winter. George was explaining that the smaller island
was uninhabited, and that Inchnamurren's houses couldn't be seen yet.
They were hidden by the sharp hill, on the north end of the island,
which fell steeply into the sea.

"Devil's Elbow, they call it," George said. -"Nasty piece of work, isn't
it?"

"Sounds ominous," David agreed. He spoke lightly, but his thoughts were
serious enough as he looked at the crook of black rock thrusting itself
so evilly out into the Sound. Full fathom five  ...  The grim
sea-raiders, the quiet fishermen who once sailed round these islands,
and then sailed no more-- The sea-wrack their shroud  ...  Back to back
they lie, lifeless lie  ...  The lines from the sea dirges which
George's mother kept prominently displayed on the piano at the Lodge
were haunting him today.

David looked at the red-bearded owner of this boat. Captain Ma clean
retired from the Seven Seas to spend his remaining years sailing round
his own islands. David wondered what the Highlander thought of them, the
intruders.

His blue eyes, bright beneath the heavy brows, met David's gaze. He
nodded slightly as if in greeting. He raised one hand slowly to his pipe
and removed it from his lips.

Tine day," he said.

"Fine," David answered, conscious of the strange fact that he felt just
like a schoolboy trying to win the friendship of an austered headmaster.
Then the pipe was replaced, the blue eyes looked beyond David once more,
and the conversation was over.

They passed the Devil's Elbow, and entered the island's sheltered bay.
Here, in sunlit peace, colours sharpened. The water, shallow, flowing
over white sand, became a broad band of jade edging the shore. At its
edge was a row of whitewashed cottages. Farther back there were other
houses, equally white and gleaming, scattered widely over the green
fields and rugged ground. The heather was beginning to bloom; one rough
hillside was already covered with reddish purple.

"Every time I see this island I wonder why Mother didn't buy a house
here rather than on the mainland," George said.

David didn't reply to that. There was only one obvious answer, which
George was too good-natured to see: there wasn't a house on the island
big enough to suit Lady Penton Stevens The Lodge at Loch Innish, on the
other hand, had Scots baronial turrets which photographed well for the
August and September issues of the fashionable magazines.

"You really ought to see it when all the heather is out," George was
saying.

"Look, David, why don't you stay for August? Mother and the girls will
be here for the Twelfth."

"Can't be managed, George," David said firmly. Lady Fenton-Stevens had
no doubt invited some really eligible bachelors to amuse her daughters.

"I hope it isn't because of Eleanor," George began, and then halted
awkwardly. He frowned as he thought of his very pretty sister, who had
such an enchanting time, always --so it seemed--at the expense of his
friends' emotions.

"Good Lord, no." David gave a short laugh which sounded almost genuine.

Eleanor wasn't within his price range, even if he had still wanted her.

"I still think you ought to have a few weeks of proper holiday," George
said stubbornly.

"London in August is hideous. You'll never be able to work there."

I've got to, David was thinking: I've only myself to depend on.

George would never know what grim urgency that small fact gave to life.
But he smiled and said, "God, isn't it bright? I am seeing all colours
in the spectrum now, black-dotted." He watched the boat as it was
carefully eased along the jetty, where two brown-legged, barefooted
children halted in their game to see the foreigners arrive. A
white-haired man was working on the seams of an upturned rowing-boat.
Two women gathered seaweed on the shore. Three men leaned against the
wall of a cottage.

"A hive of industry," David remarked.

"George, are you sure there is a hotel?"

"Over there beside the church. They'll give us a decent enough lunch,
and then we can call on this Dr. MacLntyre of yours."

"Not mine," David said hastily.

"This is all Chaundler's idea."

Walter Chaundler was David's tutor at Oxford. When he had heard in June
about his pupil's visit to this part of Scot- land he had been
delighted.

"You must go to see MacLntyre and take him messages from me," Chaundler
had said.

"I shall write to him at once and tell him that you are tutoring this
summer at the Penton-Stevens' place at Loch Innish. That is almost next
door to Inchnamurren, as far as I remember. I spent a summer on the
island three years ago, in 1929, when MacLntyre and I were collaborating
on that book on Mysticism and its Influence on History. Quite a
remarkable man, really. He was born in that island and went to school
there. Then he went to Glasgow University, and after that came up to
Oxford. He became a don here, and later he was a professor in London.
And then, quite suddenly, after his wife died, he went back to his
island again. Quite remarkable."

And when David had remained silent, wondering if retiring to an unknown
island in a forgotten part of the world was the depressing proof of
failure after so much effort, Chaundler had sensed the young man's
doubts. He had urged in his kindly, gentle way, "Do go. I am sure
MacLntyre would be delighted." And that was how this visit had been
decided.

David had not been altogether happy about it, though. He had postponed
it until almost the last week of his stay at Loch Innish. And he would
not write to Dr. MacLntyre, either. His excuse was that if Dr. MacLntyre
lived on a small island he would always be easily found.

Better keep the whole thing as informal as possible, he had thought:
then it would seem less of an invasion.

As they began walking towards the village David found that he was
following George and Ma clean with rather a slower stride. Either George
was being too enthusiastic about this whole place or he was taking
charge of this visit too efficiently--anyway, it was all becoming a
forced pilgrimage. It had never seemed to dawn on George that Dr.
MacLntyre might find them rather a nuisance.

"George," David said very quietly--and, as Fentonstevens halted while Ma
clean went over to talk to the three men outside the general store, he
went on, "Look, why don't we call the whole thing off?"

George stared at him.

"Rather late to think of that. But just as you please." He gave a
worried glance towards Ma clean and his friends, now deep in
conversation.

David touched George's arm.

"All right," he said, "I agree we did arrive rather obviously. Let's see
this medieval historian on his medieval island, and justify Chaundler's
letter of introduction about us. Let's get that over and done with." He
watched George's transparent relief at not being forced to do the wrong
thing.

"Good'." George said.

"Now we had better collect Captain Ma clean He has invited us to visit
his sister, as we've arrived here earlier than we thought. I couldn't
very well refuse." He looked anxiously at David, but David was smiling
now quite openly.

"Well, come on, then," George said, with a touch of sharpness.

They walked over to the group of islanders, who stopped speaking Gaelic
and watched the foreigners gravely as Captain Ma clean introduced them
with as much seriousness as a grand seigneur presenting two young
proteges at Court.

There was a brief exchange of polite phrases, the Highlanders now
speaking in English with their soft voices and careful pronunciation. It
was very far removed from the coarse dialect of the stage Scotsman.
David was noting, too, that there was not one inch of tartan
displayed--that was probably kept for dress occasions--and he was
thankful that George had not worn his Clan Stevenson kilt to-day. That
was best left for the Lodge, where the natives had become more inured to
tourists.

Ma clean measured the necessary length of the slow, simple conversation
with considerable skill. As they were led away from the group, along the
narrow earth road which ran in front of the row of cottages, David had
the feeling that George and he had been weighed in the balance. And not
found wanting, he hoped.

A white-aproned, square-set, apple-cheeked woman was waiting for them at
a cottage door.

"My sister. Mistress Me- Donald," Ma clean explained.

"Will you not come in and have a cup of tea?" she asked. "The kettle's
singing on the hob." She stood aside, waiting for them to enter, but
with no trace of curtsy in her gesture. She had a gentle voice with
music in it, and her eyes were as placid as her brother's.

George Fenton-Stevens looked anxiously at David. But, for once, David
needed no urging. He was saying, with that rare smile of his which
lighted up his serious, guarded face with sudden warmth, "Thank you,
Mrs. McDonald; that's very kind of you." He stepped over the carefully
whitened step which led into the cottage, and Fenton-Stevens followed.

Inside the cottage was the smell of a peat fire and freshly baked
scones.

The kettle was hissing cheerily, a clock ticked loudly on the high,
crowded mantelpiece decorated with an edging of crochet. The table was
covered, and waiting. Through the small open window the cries of the
cormorants and harsh-voiced seagulls blurred into the background murmur
of breaking waves.

The blazing colours of heather and grass and sea were exchanged for a
gentler light.

A girl rose as they entered, more startled by the unexpected guests than
Mrs. McDonald had been.

It is Mr. Fenton-Stevens, from the Lodge at Loch Innish, with his friend
Mr. Bosworth, who have come to see Dr. MacIntyre himself," Mrs. McDonald
was explaining. David found that he had held out his hand, and
afterwards he remembered thinking how very odd it was that he had made
that gesture so impulsively. But at the time he was looking into a pair
of very blue eyes in a very pretty face, and that was all he could seem
to see. He did not break that look, as he should have; and, besides, he
didn't want to. He did not even hear the girl's name as Mrs. McDonald's
soft, precise voice made the introduction. Then he suddenly became
conscious that George was saying something to him about one of the
curios which littered the mantelpiece, and remembered to drop her hand.
He glanced quickly at George, and he was relieved to see that he had
noticed nothing.

Neither had Ma clean nor Mrs. McDonald. He relaxed, but he found he was
watching the girl as she moved towards the door, and he felt a sudden
stab of disappointment. The girl halted at the doorway. Perhaps she
wasn't leaving after all, he thought hopefully. But she was saying that
she was so sorry to leave, that she was so very late. Her voice was
gentle and yet clear, gentle and low, an excellent thing in a woman. Her
dark hair had strong auburn lights, almost dark red and yet not quite.
The sun was gleaming on it now as she stood at the threshold. There was
a natural grace to her body as she looked back into the room over her
shoulder. And then she was gone.

He saw her pass the small window, hurrying as if she were indeed late.
But even now that last glimpse of her through the window, that colour of
the sweater which she wore, reminded him again of her eyes.

He looked sharply at George, but Fenton-Stevens was helping Mrs.
McDonald to clear a chair of magazines, and Mrs. McDonald was saying
that Miss. Penny was always so thoughtful about bringing her something
to read, which was a nice change from the knitting. It was clear from
her matter-of-fact words, and George's equally sensible reply, and
Captain Ma clean practical absorption in the excellent soda scones and
fresh butter, that none of them realized they had just seen a miracle of
a girl.

David concentrated on the difficult problem of eating a newly baked
oatcake.

He was thankful that George had noticed so little, or else there would
have been much leg- pulling for days--perhaps even weeks--about his
sudden aberration. He could hear George saying to a group of Oxford
friends, when the subject of women came up,

"Remember David and his neat speeches on women being a snare and
delusion?

If they are pretty they have no heart, no brain. A pretty girl doesn't
need them: she doesn't need anything except her face-value, which she
has calculated to the last shilling. Well, don't listen to him ...  You
should have seen him, holding on to her hand, no doubt supporting
himself, for he would have fallen flat on his back if he had let go." At
least, David now reflected, he had been spared that.

"You are very quiet, David," George remarked, with a slight touch of
prodding. Sometimes David was really too difficult socially. He had
entered this cottage with good enough grace, but here he was in one of
those preoccupied moods of his.

"I am wrestling with this," David said, and indicated the mess of golden
crumbs which covered his plate.

"It looks as if I needed a spoon, doesn't it?"

That amused his hostess; and her brother remarked, as he tactfully
demonstrated how to spread butter on oatcake by putting the cake on the
flat tablecloth rather than on the curved surface of the plate, that Mr.
Bosworth was a great one for the joking. David saw a gleam in George's
eye, and knew that if any reminiscences about this visit were to be
created in Oxford--for George rather fancied himself as a
storyteller--then Ma clean summing up would be the chief reason for
mirth. George would develop a masterly rendering of the Highlander's
pronunciation of the initial consonant. "He's a crate one for the
choking," George would say at the right moment after David had produced
an attempt at wit. But that was the kind of leg-pulling that David could
take.

So now David smiled round the table as he thanked Mac- Lean for the
excellent advice, and began to talk about the mantelpiece, crammed with
some particularly hideous presents from Shanghai and Singapore which
the late Captain McDonald had brought home from his voyages.

It is rather pleasant, I must say," George began, and then thought
better of saying it. They were walking up the winding road which would
take them to Dr. MacLntyre's house.

"What is?"

"To see the island from the inside, as it were. I've visited this place
each summer, but I've always left Ma clean at the jetty and then
strolled inland.

But this is the first time I've got to know any of them. They are very
polite, but very remote to strangers."

"Foreigners, you mean."

George looked as if he did not like to accept that idea. After all, he
was English, and these islands were part of the British Isles. And he
had been coming to this part of Scot- land each summer for six years
now.

"Well," he said, 'they accepted us all right today."

"Because we had the right password, I suppose."

"Dr. MacLntyre's name?"

"I'm afraid so. Quite a blow to admit it wasn't for our sweet and
charming smiles, isn't it? But cheer up, George: the right password is
the key to any fortress. Here it is quite simply a matter of friendship.
It wouldn't have mattered to Mrs. McDonald who we were, or what we did
or thought: we came as friends of Dr. MacLntyre's, and that was good
enough for her."

"I must tell that to Mother," George said.

"She is completely baffled by these Highlanders, you know. When we first
came here she tried visiting the cottages in the village at Loch Innish,
taking the people some fruit from our garden and that sort of thing. But
some weeks later they returned the visit, bringing home-made scones and
heather honey. It set Mother back for weeks."

David let out a roar of laughter, and George joined in eventually. He
had the uncomfortable feeling that David was laughing at quite a
different side of the story.

"You do throw yourself into things, old boy, don't you?" George
remarked, when David had recovered.

"No half- measures for you in anything, it seems." Then, thinking of his
mother, with a hint of guilt for having laughed too, he said, "Might be
rather' nice to bring Mother and Eleanor over here some day. It would be
definitely a new experience for them." David said quickly, "Good God,
not that." And then more slowly, tactfully, "They will be much too busy,
anyway."

"Yes. One always is busier than one imagines," George paused. With a
sudden flash of sensitivity he said, "Women are such damned snobs, come
to think of it. They just couldn't have tea in a kitchen without feeling
all the time that it was the kitchen. Now men, for instance, enjoy a
pleasant hour anywhere, and they don't care where it is as long as it is
pleasant."

David nodded. He was thinking again of the girl he had met in Mrs.
McDonald's kitchen. Her voice had no Highland intonation. Was she a
summer visitor, and where was she staying, anyway? He halted suddenly,
and looked back at the village. What an idiotic way to behave, he told
himself angrily, and turned quickly to walk on with George.

They said good-day to two children, an old man, and a young boy. But of
the girl with the blue eyes and the dark auburn hair there was no sign.

Chapter Two.

DR MACINTYRE AS LORD CHESTERFIELD.

Silence fell on the pleasant room. Dr. MacLntyre, sitting in his
favourite armchair by the side of the large brick fireplace, wondered
just how long they had been talking. The conversation had been
interesting enough: it was always a delight to hear the news from
Oxford, or to catch an echo of his own experiences when he had been an
undergraduate, or to watch a young man's ideas and enthusiasms suddenly
reveal themselves in spite of pretended diffidence. For it was the
fashion among young men these days to be diffident. But every now and
again their natural exuberance would break down the pretence. And a
damned good thing, too, Dr. MacLntyre reflected.

David suddenly thought of looking at his watch. He rose quickly to his
feet.

T'm terribly sorry, sir," he said. T've taken up far too much of your
time.

I had no idea  ..."

"Then we both enjoyed the afternoon," Dr. MacLntyre said tactfully. He
rose too, and knocked the ashes from his pipe into the fireplace. He was
a tall man, and he still carried himself erectly, but he had become
thinner since he had ordered his tweed suit, for it hung loosely on him.
His age, in spite of his white hair, was only noticeable in his
deliberate movements. His blue eyes were unfaded, and there was youth in
them: they were interested and amused. The flesh on his face was firm
over the strong bones, and there was a fresh, healthy colour in his
cheeks. He had surprised David when they had first met: he gave the
impression of vigour and of enjoyment, as if his life had been
completely successful and surprisingly entertaining.

David hesitated, looking round the room, knowing that he really must
take his leave and yet regretting to go. It was a room to work and talk
and think in, a large room that was friendly and comfortable.

Bookcases, tightly filled with books --and not all scholarly books
either. A piano and a heavily filled music-rack. A wireless-set beside
the fireplace.

A gramophone and a good variety of records. At the west window there was
a large desk. At the east window, looking over the Sound towards the
mainland, there was a low table with a game of chess in progress and two
comfortable armchairs. David's eyes travelled back to the desk, with its
busy disorder of work interrupted.

He said, "I'm afraid I have been rather a nuisance."

"Not a bit of it, not a bit of it," Dr. MacLntyre said. He was satisfied
with his pipe-tapping. He straightened his back, and then stood for a
moment looking at a photograph on the mantelpiece. He seemed lost in
thought, and David felt he was being politely dismissed. This was the
way in which Chaundler, in Oxford, gave him warning. I've stayed too
long, and I've talked too much--God, much too much--David thought
miserably, and all the pleasure in the visit vanished as he realized how
bored Dr. MacLntyre must have been.

But Dr. MacLntyre, taking a keen look at the embarrassment on the young
man's face, said, "If you wait until I find my tobacco I'll take a turn
with you in the garden.

I have some surprising hollyhocks." He noted the relief on David's face.

Young men did not change very much, after all, in spite of fashions in
behaviour ...

No doubt Bosworth had come here out of a sense of duty, not really
expecting to enjoy himself. And now, because he has enjoyed the visit,
he is having an attack of guilt in case he has bored me, Dr. MacLntyre
thought.

"I believe he likes roe," Dr. MacLntyre said to himself, and then shook
his head over his own vanity.

"Now where did I put that tobacco-tin?" he asked.

David was looking at the three healthy children in the silver-framed
photograph which, along with a faded picture of a very pretty woman in
Edwardian dress, held the position of honour on the mantelpiece.

"That was my wife," Dr. MacLntyre remarked quietly.

"Anc these are my grandchildren," he added, straightening th silver
frame to let the three young faces smile directly into the room.

"Charming," David said politely, but he was much more interested in the
photograph of Mrs. MacLntyre. She remindec him strangely of some one.

"Brats," Dr. MacLntyre said, not without affection.

"Thani Heaven it was decent weather to-day, or we shouldn't have been
given a moment's peace. Chopsticks on the piano, cuttings from magazines
scattered everywhere, portraits of me being made  ...  I can't even fall
asleep in my own armchaii in case I am drawn with my mouth open. Ah!
Here it is! He retrieved the tobacco-tin from the side of the
chess-table He filled his pipe thoughtfully, looked down at the
chessrnei on the board. Til have to watch out, or I'll be running into
difficulties.

The schoolmaster plays a canny game. Of course I can always blame my
mistakes on the view." As he lit hi; pipe he raised his eyes and looked
out over the Sound an its shining waters.

David came over to join him. The two men stood ir silence for a few
moments.

"I envy you living here," David said suddenly, and wa; surprised to hear
his own words.

"You are seeing it at its best to-day, I might warn you," D. MacLntyre
said deprecatingly, but he was pleased all the same. And now, he
thought, Bosworth will say it must b< quite awesome in the winter
months. His visitors always did But David's next remark made him turn to
look at the young; man with surprise.

"Beautiful, but cruel," David was saying.

"So much land, s( few people, so little for even those people to live
on.

An( why?

Fenton-Stevens says it was always wild land, only gooc for grouse and
deer.

True, you can't do much with mountain; except admire them or climb them.
But where there an mountains there must be valleys. And where there are
valley: there could be good roads and small towns and light industries
When we motored from Glasgow to Loch Innish wi passed enough torrents
and waterfalls to give electric powe: to the whole of Scotland. Then why
aren't there electric rail ways opening up the whole place? They'd bring
more that they would take away: they don't have to make a place ugly I'm
thinking of Switzerland, you see." He stopped abruptly, aware that he
was perhaps suggesting something that Dr. MacLntyre would deplore. Many
people, even Scotsmen, would be annoyed by such an idea.

Dr. MacLntyre was watching him with interested eyes. He said nothing, as
if he were waiting for David to go on. And David realized that Dr.
MacLntyre's surprise was not caused by any new ideas that had been
presented to him, but by the fact that David--an Englishman--had
actually thought of them.

But David didn't speak. He was telling himself gloomily that whatever he
could say about the Highlands--their neglect for almost two hundred
years, the fact that as far as they were concerned the Industrial
Revolution or the prosperity of the nineteenth century might never have
existed in the British Isles, the lack of any large-scale plan with real
determination behind it--well, Dr. MacLntyre had already thought of all
these things. Anything David said might only look as if he were trying
to show off in front of Dr. MacLntyre.

Perhaps he had been enjoying that moment too much, when he felt he had
captured Dr. MacLntyre's attention. Yet it was more than that. He
glanced sharply at Dr. MacLntyre to see if there was any trace of
amusement in his eyes.

"Of course," David said, *I should admit that I never even thought about
all this until I came to visit this part of the world."

Dr. MacLntyre looked at David thoughtfully. Visitors usually accepted
what they saw and asked no questions. Either they praised the scenery
and the beauties of the simple life--and then after three or four weeks
they went home to modern conveniences--or they remarked how isolated and
desolate it all was, how very primitive, and never stopped to wonder
why. I have a weakness, Dr. MacLntyre thought, for young people who ask
an intelligent why.

He laid his hand on David's shoulder and said, "I have something here
that might interest you." He led him to a bookcase, with more
photographs and snapshots placed on its top. He chose one and handed it
to David. It was a group of young men in the dress of forty years ago.

Do you know anyone there?" he asked.

"I'll give you a clue. It was taken in our last year at Balliol."

David recognized MacLntyre's direct eye, strong nose, and determined jaw
line. But Walter Chaundler was not so easj to find.

David's unsuccessful attempts amused Dr. MacLntyre "There he is!" He
pointed to the most elegant young blad( of them all.

"Of course, the photograph hasn't lasted ver} well." He examined its
yellow, faded surface.

"We all look ai if we were giving imitations of William Toll's son mixed
witt Oscar Wilde."

"And a touch of George Washington after he cut down the cherry-tree,"
David suggested.

"After he confessed," Dr. MacLntyre emended. They bott looked at the
photograph and laughed in agreement.

"It is i nice old horror," MacLntyre said affectionately, as he replacec
it carefully in its exact place on the bookcase. David was thinking of
Walter Chaundler.

He was remembering the quiet thin face, imperceptible in a crowd, vague
even to the pupil! he tutored. David glanced towards the photograph
again, and felt a sense of depression. On the surface Chaundler's was
more successful life compared to that of the man who had suddenly
retired to the simplicity of this island. On the surface  ...  but the
photograph pointed him out quite clearly a; the less successful man.
Perhaps not in his career; but some how, some way, in himself.

David said slowly, "Strange how one changes."

MacLntyre seemed to read his thoughts.

"If I were a young man again there is one bit of advice I would like to
get." H( paused then and smiled.

"Now that's an old man talking, il ever I heard one." "What would that
be, sir?" David asked.

"Well," Dr. MacLntyre said, 'a man's life is divided into twc parts:
there is his work and there is his own private life. Twc small worlds
which he has to make for himself. And it is onl} when he is old, and the
time for decision is over, that he ma} realize he did not need to
neglect one for the other.

For if h( concentrated too much on one of them, then he really con fused
their purpose. He had thought that either a successfu career was life,
or life itself was a career. He hadn't realizec that his work and his
own private life should be given the same amount of thought, and they
should grow along will each other, each influencing the other, each
developing the other.

Without that balance he will find himself an incomplete man. That's the
tragic thing about age: to realize yoi have somehow never seen what is
happiness until it was toe late to start building it up. For it has to
be built. Pleasure is a simple thing: you can choose it, buy it, even
have it as a gift. It only depends on your taste. But happiness is much
more complicated: you have got to build it yourself."

"But what about the uneven start in life?" David asked.

"Oh, I know that even those who get that head start have to work pretty
hard if they want to achieve anything for themselves. But----" He
paused. That was cold consolation. You might have contempt for those who
depended on their father's name or their grandfather's money--the
'borrowers," you could call them--but they still had an easier time of
it, even in the smallest things. They could go to a concert, buy a
ticket for a theatre or a copy of a book they wanted, without having to
miss lunch for the next three days to pay for each of these pleasures.
Yet even the man who could make the choice of feeding his mind and
starving his body was lucky in his way: he had his head start too over
those who had to starve both mind and body. There were plenty of them.
Too many  ...  David stared angrily out at the blue sea with its rim of
clear bright green.

"But it is the small worries that all link up to form a chain round your
ankles. It isn't easy that way. And if a man manages it in spite of all
the handicaps, he gets more sneers than praise. We all make jokes about
the self-made man; you'd think in Britain that the wealthy families had
never been nouveaux riches at one time too. If snobbery is as important
as we assume it is, then we should be quite thorough about it. If it is
age and custom that count, then the descendant of the Saxon manor-house,
who is called plain "Mr.', is certainly more noble than any of the
family of a fifteenth century earl. Our mental habits are ludicrous.

And damned unfair. Sorry, sir. But that is how it looks to me."

Dr. MacLntyre said, "I used the same sentence many a time." The past
tense was definite. There was kindliness and understanding in his eyes.
He seemed to be telling David to accept the unfairness and the
inequalities, not as a proof that difficulties were too big ever to be
overcome, but rather as a challenge which, if well met, promised its own
private reward. It was the inner success--the sense of striving for
completeness--and not the outward signs of success, which really
mattered.

In that moment a lot about Dr. MacLntyre became clear to David.

And then the door opened. Mrs. Lorrimer, Dr. MacTntyre's daughter, came
once more into the room. She had the same expression of worry on her
face with which she had welcomed Fenton-Stevens and David this afternoon
when they had first arrived.

"That boat is in sight, Father," she said warningly. She was
middle-aged, tall, and thin, with her fading blonde hair caught in a
heavy knot at the back of her head. Her blue eyes had faded, too, and so
had her skin. There was the same bleached vagueness about her whole
appearance. She was dressed in brown. She always dressed in brown
because she had been told at the age of twenty how well she looked in
brown. David couldn't know that, of course.

All he knew was that her dress was very correct, very safe, and dull
enough to be very expensive. She looked old, he decided, to be the
mother of the three young children on the mantelpiece.

Ts it, Mary?" Dr. MacLntyre said, refusing to be hurried. On a clear day
like this the little steamer which brought mail, merchandise, livestock,
and occasional passengers to the various islands could be seen miles
away. There was no need to get worried about it.

"Where's Fenton-Stevens?" he asked.

"I thought he was with you in the garden."

"That was a long time ago." There was a note of remonstrance in the
cool, precise voice.

"Eventually," it went on, "Mr. Fenton-Stevens went over to explore the
west shore with the children. I've been reading upstairs." Somehow there
was a slightly complaining effect, just a touch of self-pity, in the way
she phrased her words. But Dr. McLntyre either ignored or preferred not
to notice.

"How nice," he said.

"The rest would do you good, Mary."

His daughter did not acknowledge that probability. Father, she decided,
was having one of his annoying moods.

"Have you that letter ready for the boat, or can it wait until next
week?" she asked.

"The boat won't arrive for another hour, Mary. I have plenty of time."

"I told the children to be sure to return for the boat," Mrs. Lorrimer
said.

"They can take the letter down to the jetty, and perhaps Angus will slip
it into the post-bag for you."

"He always does," her father said genially.

"We've a damned good postman here, Bosworth. He never breaks a rule
because he has never made any." David saw Mrs. Lorrimer flinch slightly
at her father's choice of adjectives. But its purpose was achieved: no
further suggestions were made to plague Dr. MacLntyre. And having
established his own un flustered world again the old man turned towards
his desk with a glint of humour in his eyes and picked up his pen.

"I'll join you later," he said to David.

"Have a look at the hollyhocks."

That sounded a very pleasant way of spending half an hour. But
unfortunately Mrs. Lorrimer was a very polite hostess, and insisted on
accompanying David towards the garden.

Chapter Three.

MRS LORRIMER REGRETS.

Dr. MacLntyre's house had been originally a row of three small cottages.
The thick walls had been kept, the unnecessary doors had been plastered
over, the windows had been enlarged and given shutters for protection in
the winter, and a deep-gabled slate roof had been substituted for
thatch. It stood very white and brightly smiling in the sunshine. A grey
stone wall had been built across a short field to join the southwest
corner of the house at right angles, and within the sheltered crook of
this arm a garden had come to life.

Here all the warmth in the air was trapped and held, and the hollyhocks
grew.

David looked out over the bleak hillsides and then back at this smiling
corner.

"How remarkable to see anything growing except heather," he said.

Mrs. Lorrimer seemed hardly to notice the pleasure of the soft green
grass underfoot. She ignored the excellent crop of vegetables, and
looked critically at a rose-bush which showed symptoms of withering.

"It is very limited gardening, of course," she said.

"There are so many things that simply refuse to grow here." She sounded
as if it were necessary to concentrate on what couldn't be grown in the
garden, rather than on the things that could. David wondered if her
garden at home could grow bananas or coconuts, and if it could not, did
that prove it was not a very good garden.

"Fine crop of hollyhocks," he said tactfully.

Mrs. Lorrimer looked frowningly at their bright reds and pinks, glowing
with all the warmth and life of a Renoir painting.

"It is so very odd," she said almost apologetically, 'that Father ever
came back here."

"Perhaps he likes living here."

"But he is so out of touch with everything."

David thought of the room which they had just left.

Mrs. Lorrimer's exact voice continued, "We thought he should retire to
some place near us in Edinburgh. My husband is a Writer to the Signet
there, you see." There was a slight pause to allow that fact to sink in.

"Edinburgh really would have been much more of a spiritual home to him.
Or Oxford."

David had flinched at the phrase. He said quickly, "I've always thought
that a--a spiritual home is just not a matter of geography."

He cleared his throat nervously, and was thankful that none of his
Oxford friends had heard him use the phrase.

"You mean, it does not matter where one lives?" Mrs. Lorrimer was
shocked: she was probably thinking of Glasgow, "Emotionally or
physically, yes. We all feel happier or less happy in certain places.
But if there is any spiritual home, surely it is what we have collected
inside our own heads?

After all, Descartes thought out half of his philosophy when he spent a
day in a Bavarian stove.

And he lived much of his life in foreign armies, although he wasn't at
all warlike. I don't think he would call the stove or the barracks his
spiritual home: they were just places that suited him for examining his
own thoughts.

He didn't have to talk to people there, I suppose." Now, he thought,
let's drop all this stuff about spiritual homes and enjoy the garden
instead.

"Really!" Mrs. Lorrimer murmured. Inside a stove--but how ridiculous.

Was he being facetious? Surely he didn't mean that people who talked of
spiritual homes had few resources inside their own minds? She stared at
him blankly. He was looking now at the row of hollyhocks against the
wall, his hands deep in the pockets of his grey flannel trousers. She
admitted with a certain amount of effort that he was not disagreeable to
look at. He was tall, and carried himself well.

Even when he was standing negligently, as he was at this moment, he did
not slouch. He wasn't handsome like George Fenton-Stevens, of course,
just as he had not his charm of manner either. Grey eyes under strong
eyebrows. Black hair, thick and rather too long, but then barbers were
difficult to find in this part of the world. A mouth which was pleasant
enough when it smiled, but it seemed to fall naturally into a firm line.
Rather too strong a face, Mrs. Lorrimer's taste decided as she completed
her inventory. Still, he was not unattractive. Mrs. Lorrimer determined
to try again.

"Were you at school with George Fentonstevens?"

"No." David turned away from the hollyhocks.

"Where did you go to school?"

"In London." There was a fleeting smile. This insistence on schools
always amused him: the safe conversational gambit, becoming suddenly
less safe when London was given so broadly. That might, people always
thought as they withdrew their cloaks just an inch, mean even a Board
school. Mrs. Lorrimer obviously thought so.

"Oh!" She was vaguely distressed, as if she had been talking to a
legless man and had asked him how he liked dancing. "But you are at
Oxford?"

"Yes." This time he looked at her very directly.

"On a scholarship," he said very clearly. Just as your father was, he
thought. Just as more than half the men at Oxford are.

"How interesting," she was saying, but her voice was far from
interested.

"And what are you going to do after Oxford?"

"That isn't decided yet." It wouldn't be, until he had First Class
Honours.

If he didn't get that, then his choice of career would narrow down.

"Really?" Mrs. Lorrimer was amazed.

"I thought young men always knew at this stage of their lives what they
were aiming for."

They know, he thought. Most of them know, but only some of them can talk
about it. There is nothing like a nice little private bank account to
let one talk confidently about the future.

Mrs. Lorrimer was saying, "Mr. Fenton-Stevens is thinking of the Foreign
Office, I hear. A diplomat's life must be so interesting, don't you
think?"

David agreed politely, but there was a strained look about his mouth.

What an odd young man, Mrs. Lorrimer decided. He talked so little about
the things that really mattered. This was not what George Fenton-Stevens
had led her to expect from his friend. Brilliant talker, editor of this
magazine, secretary of that society, leading light in the Union ... Why,
he had made David Bosworth sound really quite interesting. She picked
one of the roses, and looked at its soft petals without seeing them. She
liked young men handsome and well mannered with nice families and
definite careers and high hopes. Who didn't, with three growing
daughters to be launched into successful marriages?

She tried once more.

"And how is Lady Fentonstevens?"

David turned to look at her with some surprise.

"Charming woman," Mrs. Lorrimer said, on the strength of one chance
meeting some three years ago in Edinburgh. Not that Mrs. Lorrimer
approved of all the publicity which Lady Fenton-Stevens managed to
attract in the newspapers.

David only smiled, and Mrs. Lorrimer felt uneasy. If she had been a
mind-reader she would have been horrified.

"You are a friend of the family's, aren't you?" she asked.

"Not exactly. I'm staying at Loch Innish as a tutor. George's young
brother and his cousin need some grounding, and George and I are doing
some reading together too when we get time for that." David made an
effort to end this question- and-answer conversation.

"The Lodge is an interesting old place. It must have seen a lot of
fighting in the days when the McDonalds owned it. Their coat of arms is
carved over the entrance, you know." And a Margaret McDonald is the
housekeeper, and a Malcolm McDonald is the head gillie-- but let that
pass, he thought tactfully.

"Oh, these McDonalds were very good sheep-stealers and pirates
themselves," Mrs. Lorrimer said lightly.

"It isn't wise to investigate any of the past history round here. All
these Highlanders were very wild."

"Fortunately for us!" David said, with a laugh.

"Or Eng- land might have found herself being attacked by Norsemen who
had settled quite cosily in these mountains."

There was a tolerant silence. Oh, God, David thought, isn't that letter
finished yet? And then, as his eyes left the garden, searching for some
possible piece of conversation which would not leave them feeling this
hidden antagonism, he found his release.

"Hello!" he said.

"There is some one in rather a hurry." He pointed to a small thin figure
scrambling over the hillside with more energy than grace.

"That's Betty," Mrs. Lorrimer said.

"I wonder where the others can be." There was a motherly note of anxiety
in her voice which made her sound human for the first time.

"Oh, they'll be all right, Mrs. Lorrimer," David said.

"George is really awfully good with children. He handles his small
brother and shrimp of a cousin very well."

Mrs. Lorrimer looked strangely at the young man beside her. But she did
not reply, for her attention was gathering on her daughter, now within
polite calling distance.

"Don't jump like that, Betty. It's dangerous. You'll sprain your ankle."

The girl, one of those long-legged pole-like creatures who haven't yet
become conscious of their sex, waved cheerily back, but she stopped
leaping from mound to mound obediently and settled into a jogging run.

"I wish I had had three boys," Mrs. Lorrimer said, as if to herself.

"It would not matter if they were to thicken their ankles, or break a
nose, or have a scar on their cheek. Just look at you, Betty!"

Betty, red-cheeked and breathless, looked. She had seaweed stains across
the shoulders of her blouse, her skirt was wet at the hem as if she had
waded in the sea and had misjudged the height of a wave, there was a
long red score on her leg still bleeding slightly, and her shoes were
caked with the black earth of the peat bog.

"Doesn't hurt a bit," she assured her mother cheerfully, looking down at
the cut on her leg.

"We were exploring the rocks, trying to show George the seals, and I
slipped into a pool. It's nothing." She surveyed David gravely, with
frank curiosity. To her a man meant some one who could run more quickly
and climb more rocks than she could.

He also meant some one who paid no attention to her, but just let her
come along with her sisters. But this man was smiling as he watched her.
She felt he was sort of on her side.

Mother was asking questions again. Betty said wearily, conscious of her
audience, "Oh, Moira and George have gone to the village to see the boat
come in. I came to get Grandpa's old letter."

Just wait until I can talk to you alone, my girl, Mrs. Lorrimer thought.

"And to wash and change." She looked angrily at-'the scarred leg.

"Put some iodine on that. Am wear your stockings. You are much too big a
girl to gi I running about with bare legs."

Betty's red cheeks deepened in colour as she was disciplined in public.
She glanced nervously at the man standi nj so silently beside her mother.

"Yes, Mummy," she said dutifully.

Old letter, indeed, Mrs. Lorrimer thought.

"And where's Penelope?"

"She stayed to see if the seals came. Don't worry. Mummy, she went on
quickly, seeing the frown on her mother's face " She isn't climbing over
the rocks. She's sitting on the shore She can't fall off there."

Betty, with her natural good humou) once more regained, moved towards
the house. She callec over her shoulder to David, "Aren't you going down
to se the boat come in? There are horses on board to-day. One< ' there
was a storm, and the waves were so big that when ths horses were
swimming ashore ' " Betty! You are late," Mrs. Lorrimer interrupted.

"Yes, Mummy." Betty moved another three feet.

"Yoi couldn't see their heads," she finished for David's benefit, and
then ran.

David felt himself abandoned once more to Mrs. Lorrimer'! quiet
disapproval.

If only she wouldn't be so polite and sta^ here with him. If only she
would go away and do what sh< wanted to do. It would be pleasant to
stretch out on the grass and wait here for George to return. Or it would
be plea san to explore the island. This was a perfect day for exploring
He said suddenly, "I say, Mrs. Lorrimer, why don't you lei me go over to
the Atlantic shore and bring your daughtel I home? She may forget all
about time over there." Davk looked towards the western path across the
island.

"I suppos< if I follow that I can't go wrong?"

"There is a stretch of sand at the end of that road. She is probably
there.

I suppose she will be all right, really. But ] never know what these
children are up to next. Cave-exploring, rock-climbing, diving through
Atlantic breakers. The} think they are indestructible." Mrs. Lorrimer
spoke with e certain relief. She really had wasted so much of this after
noon already.

"I'll find her, and bring her home totea. Don't worry. Nc trouble at
all.

I should like a walk. Yes, really I should.

David said quickly, and started towards the road. Just at that last
moment he had felt Mrs. Lorrimer was about to change her mind after all.

He was perfectly right about that. She remained standing there,
hesitating.

But she was too late now. She turned and went indoors.

He would have been amused if he had known that Mrs. Lorrimer had already
started worrying about him, and worrying all the more because she
couldn't imagine why she should be worrying. But all he was thinking
about was the fact that he was free for the next hour, that he was
actually going to be left alone. He never seemed to be able to be alone
over at the Lodge--not until the others went to bed. They were
gregarious animals, and assumed that every one wanted to be like them:
an afternoon spent by themselves would seem to them intolerable. This,
David decided as he looked with keen pleasure about him, is sheer
luxury. The air tasted of heather and bracken and sea.

There was silence--so much silence that it was almost a sound; for here,
in the middle of the island, the murmur of the waves had faded in the
sloping moorland, and the solitary falcon overhead made no cry.

He remembered his errand, and increased his pace slightly. If he must
play nursemaid to get this hour he was quite willing to do it: the walk
across the island was well worth it. For somehow, from the photograph in
MacLntyre's study, David had formed the idea that Betty was the eldest
child-- she was easily identified, freckles and all.

So he must keep his eyes open for some pig tailed creature with a
passion for seals. But perhaps, he thought hopefully, she had gone home
already, taking a short-cut, like Betty, across the hills. That would
make things perfect.

On the west side of the island there were no houses whatever. The
scattered trees had disappeared too--the last ones he had passed had
been only man-height, with all their meagre branches growing eastward.
The sun's reflection dazzled his eyes for a moment; and then he saw, at
either end of the stretch of shining sand, black rocks, bared like giant
teeth, jutting boldly up against the enormous breakers. As he watched a
small fragment of the black rock moved and dived into a spent wave.
Another piece of glistening rock raised itself and then lay down again.
Good Lord, he thought, there are seals after all. He stood still; if he
moved they would take fright. He remembered, dutifully, to look for the
Lorrimer child.

She wasn't there.

Instead he saw the girl with the auburn hair and the bright blue
sweater.

She was sitting on the sand, so motionless that the outcrop of black
rock beside her had partly hidden her, and she was looking at the seals.
She hadn't noticed him.

His first impulse was to leave. You don't have to see her again, he told
himself. He waited, perhaps hoping that she might turn her head.

You don't have to see her, he told himself again.

And then he began to walk slowly towards her.

Chapter Four.

WHITE SANDS AND BLACK SEALS.

As he reached her his heavy shoes sank into the harsh sand, and the
sound made her turn her head.

"Hello," he said--hesitated, and then dropped casually down beside her
on the sand. She smiled, but she did not speak. She lost the startled
look which had greeted him.

David said, "Sorry, I'm afraid I've frightened off your friends."

After his first quick glance at her face he had looked away, and now all
his interest seemed to be focused on the seals as they dived into the
water and stayed there.

She was silent for some moments. And then, as if she had suddenly
realized that it was her turn to say something, she spoke quickly, still
clinging to the subject that he had given her, "They are easily
frightened." She hesitated, but as he seemed to be perfectly happy just
sitting there, waiting for her to speak, she gained confidence.

Her voice became more natural.

"They are funny, you know. They love showing off, and they will flap up
on these rocks and pose for us because they simply can't help it. Then,
if we move, they'll dive into the sea. But a little later, if we keep
quite still once more, they'll come back on to the rocks. They'll look
round, as if they were making quite sure we were still there, and
they'll start posing again."

"Disappointing for them when they find their audience has gone home to
tea. What were you trying to_do, sitting so still? Tame them?"

"I don't always sit quite so still." She looked at him with her blue
eyes smiling. The nervous tightness in her throat had altogether
disappeared now, and she no longer felt as if each word were being
strangled.

"You see," she admitted, 'sometimes I get tired of them on the rock.
They aren't so very pretty bouncing around on land, and their fur gets
dried --all sort of brown and spotty. So I move, and they dive. They
really are beautiful when they dive. And when they come back on to the
rocks they are black and glistening. Much more attractive."

He found he was laughing, partly because of the vivacity in her face,
partly because she was laughing at herself.

"One- woman society for the preservation of the beauty of the seal," he
said.

"And what else do you do over here? Fascinate the waves?"

"They do the fascinating," she admitted.

And then her conversation crumpled under her like a treacherous mountain
path, and she was left stranded, afraid to go back, unable to go on.
That was the kind of remark which her mother and Moira called silly. Her
cheeks flushed. There was a pause. The more things she tried to think of
the less she found to say.

"What do you do?" he insisted gently. Did she just think about herself?

Wasn't that what girls thought of mostly? Even when they went out with a
man they couldn't lose the habit: you'd see them looking at themselves
in mirrored walls in a restaurant, comparing other women with
themselves. In cinemas and theatres they still found another kind of
mirror, measuring their own lives by what they saw.

And even when they read there was that conscious reflection: this
heroine is like, this villainess unlike, me. But what did they think
about when they could sit and watch this sea with so much interest?

"Oh  ..." she said.

"This and that." She pretended to be unaware that he was watching her,
and she turned her face to look out to sea. But she knew that his eyes
were still on her. She felt a strange mixture of excitement and tension
and embarrassment, and it wasn't altogether unpleasant. She seemed to be
mesmerized by it, for all she could do was to stare at the sea, and at
this moment she could think of nothing at all.

Sugar and spice, David was thinking, was that all girls were made of?

Born with good bones and healthy blood, three well-chosen meals a day,
no worries. That produced prettiness, the kind of perfect hair and skin
and colouring that Eleanor Fenton-Stevens had too. But this girl she had
turned her eyes away, and he could look at her now quite openly without
being seen this girl  ...  This, he realized in amazement, this is what
I think is beauty. He stared at her unbelievingly. If he were another
man he might never have even thought she was beautiful: ideas of beauty
were as varied as the men who looked at it. What he felt now as he
looked at this girl depended on what he himself was. It was the proof of
some strange link.

This morning he had thought he was irrational. Now he knew that he had
only met a strange and new experience, as overwhelming as that of a man
who has lived on the plains all his life and has been well content with
them, until suddenly he comes upon the high ranges of mountain peaks.

He became aware that she had been speaking. She must have asked a
question, for she was now looking at him, waiting for his reply.

He said, "I'm sorry. I didn't quite  ..." He recovered his sadly
misplaced wits.

"I was thinking about the sea," he said. "You can hardly help thinking
about it, can you?"

"No; it is sort of everywhere. At first you notice its colours and
sounds, and you feel its power. Then you think of the sky too, and how
the sea and sky reflect each other, each influencing the other.

They are two separate things, and yet they aren't separate. I mean' she
looked at him quickly to see if he were amused at her, but he was
listening politely and quite seriously

"I mean, a bright sky makes an angry sea less terrifying. Or a dark sky
will make a calm, peaceful sea quite forbidding. So when you start
thinking of all the variations they can produce on each other, then
well, that is what I really meant when I said that the sea did the
fascinating."

He was still looking at her, but there was another kind of interest in
his eyes.

"Yes," he said, 'fascinating. Just as its power is terrifying. Sailors
love and hate it, you know."

"Yet they keep going back to it. Few leave it."

*I expect they find they start to worry too much when they live on land.

The sea is so dominant that we can't help remembering how small all our
problems and worries are. The sea will still be there when they are all
buried with us." He grinned and said, "Perhaps that is why some people,
including me, never feel quite comfortable when we look at the sea. It
takes away our sense of importance " Or perhaps they are poor sailors."
It was as if she had said, "I

don't believe you have a sense of importance," and he felt ridiculously
pleased. Then, remembering worries and problems and people who did not
like the sea, he thought of Mrs. Lorrimer, who would rather be spending
a summer somewhere else.

"Good Lord!" he said.

"I was sent over here to collect a child. I quite forgot." Damnation, he
thought, and rose hastily to his feet.

But there was no one else on the shore, not even behind the small
isolated rocks cropping through the bed of powdered shells.

He looked down at the girl, realizing then who she was, and saw by the
look on her face that he had indeed blundered. There was
amazement--well, he deserved that--and there was also a hint of
disappointment. He could have understood annoyance. But why
disappointment? He started making appropriate excuses: he hadn't caught
her name this morning  ...  awfully bad at names: the photograph in the
study; Betty's likeness to the eldest girl in it..

But he ended them by feeling he had only made matters worse.

He rubbed the back of his head and looked at her ruefully.

"Too many " I thoughts" in all this, if you ask me," he said.

She was smiling now. But as she rose to her feet and then brushed the
hard particles of shell down from her skirt there was some change in her
manner.

The warmth and the ease had gone. She was merely polite and charming and
very practical.

"If you were sent over here to fetch me, then we are both in disgrace,"
she said.

"The boat must have arrived ages ago, and tea is probably over."

"Shocking," he admitted.

"But then I never did do the right thing.

I'm especially glad I didn't today."

She didn't seem to hear that last sentence, mumbled as it had been.

He was relieved in a way, because he was embarrassed now that he had
said it.

It had just slipped out some how. All in all, he reflected moodily as
they walked towards the road, he was in rather poor form to-day--at
least, witt this girl. That idea depressed him.

But Penelope Lorrimer had heard the sentence all right And she was
feeling happier once more, yet not so happy a' she had been.

Disappointment still was there in her heart mocking her for her
foolishness.

That was what came of imagining things the way you wanted them to
happen.

Foi she had thought, when he had appeared on the shore sc suddenly
behind her, that he had walked across the island to meet her. She had
imagined the scene when the others returned to the house--where's
Penelope, oh, still over on the shore, now you know I don't like her to
be there alone Penelope's my second daughter who is studying painting, :
believe you met her for a moment this morning in the McDonald's cottage
...  And it hadn't been at all like that Instead he had come to look for
a stray child. He hadn'; even known her name.

And she had stayed on the shore, thinking that perhaps h( might come,
thinking--as the others left her--that surely hf and Grandfather had
finished talking and there might b( time for a walk over to the west
shore, and perhaps--jus perhaps, but what fun if he did--perhaps he
would come over here.

And he had, but not in the way she had wantec it. If I were a man, she
thought, and if I, as a man, had fel anything the way I felt in the
McDonald cottage this morning, then I would have walked across three
islands to mee the girl again. But either what she had felt had not been
fel by this man, or men just did not think this way. She wondered still
remembering the McDonald cottage, if he saic how d'you do like that to
every girl. Surely he couldn' simply couldn't, go about staring at
people when he first me them as if his whole life had stopped for a
moment. An< first she had stared back at him, and then she had felt a;
helpless as if she had been drowning, and then she ha panicked, and then
she had rushed out of the cottage sayin; she would be late for something
or other. Late, and an idiot imagining--when the first wild surge of
feeling had subsidei --that he had known that strange emotion too.
Surely any thing so strong as that must have been shared. But it hadn'
been. She felt a warm flush spread over her cheeks.

Her colour deepened still more as she heard him laugh. He was saying
that now they were even: she hadn't been listening this time, and his
question was left floating in the air.

"It wasn't worth answering, anyway," he said.

"Questions and answers are a dull way of learning about people." Damn,
he thought, I am always saying more than I should to her. That had been
a particularly naive approach. He racked his brains for a quotation or
two--this scenery called for some, and he had been quite free with them
as he had walked over here by himself. Normally there was always some
poetry lying about in his head to be picked up and presented. But
to-day, or now at least, his memory was failing him. He searched for his
pipe and tobacco.

But that failed, too. The matches flickered and died in the strong
south-west breeze. He paused, turned his back to the wind, and then, as
the match was still blown out before the pipe was set going, she
suddenly cupped her hands round the pipe to form a windbreak. He looked
up from the flaring loose strands of tobacco in surprise. She had been
completely natural in her action: she was watching the tobacco as
critically as he himself might have done.

"That's it, I think," she said.

"My grandfather is always having the same kind of trouble with damp
matches." She looked up at him and smiled. She had dropped her hands as
soon as the tobacco was lit, but her eyes were still held by his. It was
the McDonald cottage all over again.

She turned away hurriedly, and said quickly, "We really ought to hurry.
We are frightfully late." "Yes," he said.

They started walking towards the village, but their pace was just as
slow as it had been before. He began to talk. Gradually she was made to
talk too.

A strange mixture of talk about people and food and pictures and plays
and novels. Little things, trivial things perhaps, never definitely with
an end or a beginning, always merging as their minds set out to
entertain each other and were in themselves entertained. But they were
all somehow vitally important to both of them, as they unconsciously
strove to build up the shadowy outline of each other's life. It would
have been simpler if they could have said directly, "Who are you? What
are you?"

David, if he had found any time to rationalize--his favourite method of
defence against women in these last months at Oxford--would have found
himself in grave difficulties. He was talking, and listening in his
turn, without any fashionable pretence or attitudes. His words came
easily, as they did when he was alone. Now he could quote himself
without fear of a misplaced interruption or of a dazed, tolerant smile,
or--worse still--of the supercilious smirk which warned you that
everything you said was being taken down and would be used against you.
And if he talked well it was not for the old reason that he wanted to
talk well, but also because he wanted to hear her replies.

As for Penny, even her most critical mother--if she could have
listened--would have had to admit, in spite of her alarm, that her
daughter had never been more charming.

They came at last to the path that led to the house on the hill. It was
only when they saw the group standing at the doorway that they realized
how late they must be. For Captain Ma clean was there. David remembered
with sudden guilt that there were such things as tide and current to be
considered. Ma clean had warned them to be ready to sail at six o'clock.

Betty came running towards them.

"You're late--awfully late. What went wrong? Penny, Mother's simply
furious. You missed tea."

David noticed Penny's suddenly grave face.

"I'm sorry about this," he said.

"It's my fault."

"No, it wasn't. It was mine too. The time seemed so short."

"Did it?" He was pleased.

"Yes," she said simply. They had forgotten about Betty. But she reminded
them quickly enough.

"It was both their faults 1' she called to the waiting group as she ran
back to them.

Penny said furiously, "That's torn it. I sometimes wonder if I was
really so impossible at her age."

"We all were. Come on, cheer up." David still looked bewildered at the
peculiar reactions to a harmless walk. God, he thought, does that old
dragon think I was seducing her daughter? Then he saw that Penny was
more embarrassed than he was.

"Aren't you ever allowed out alone?" he asked half-jokingly.

"We have pretty strict rules," she said in a low voice. Now he would
think that she was only a schoolgirl. That would be enough to damn her
in the eyes of any University man. She wished the hillside would open
and swallow her up.

As they reached the group at the door she forced an air of unconcern
which deceived neither her mother nor Moira. Moira was looking very much
elder-sister. By one year, Penny thought angrily. She ignored Moira, and
said to her mother, "Sorry we were late."

"We had no idea of the time," David said cheerfully.

"My watch stopped. I'm awfully sorry if we kept you waiting."

"Captain Ma clean has been waiting," Mrs. Lorrimer said with marked
dignity, 'for almost fifteen minutes."

"We've time enough yet," Ma clean said, with his usual slow smile.

"Time enough."

"My fault entirely," David said, conscious of Fentonstevens's amused
eye.

"I didn't believe that seals would appear. So we waited until they did."

"They actually did?" George was interested now.

"A regular squad, complete with sergeant-major and waxed mustache."

Penny laughed, and the others smiled, all except Mrs. Lorrimer, who
thought the remark quite meaningless.

"Well," Dr. MacLntyre said, "I'm glad you did have time to see the
Atlantic coast. Good-bye. And come again. Delighted to see you. We all
might have a picnic together some day." He waved a friendly hand to the
two young men, and retired into the house with an abruptness which David
thought admirable.

"That would be grand," George said to Mrs. Lorrimer.

"We shall have another free day in a week's time."

"But we are leaving at the end of the month, and that's next week,"
Betty said. There was exaggerated disappointment in her voice. Mrs.
Lorrimer made a mental note to speak to Betty really severely this
evening: far too much playacting in front of people, far too much
consciousness of an audience.

"Well, perhaps we could arrange an earlier date than that,"
Fenton-Stevens said.

"What day would suit you, Mrs. Lorrimer?"

David let George do all the arranging. George liked that kind of thing,
anyway. David stood silent, near Penny, not looking at her and yet
conscious of her. He moved restlessly as George and Mrs. Lorrimer, then
Betty and Moira and even Ma clean were all drawn into the whirlpool of
discussion. First the day, then the time, then the place  ...  what did
it all matter? He and Penny would not be allowed one moment together.
They would have to listen to others, talk to others, and hardly dare
look at each other. Even now the family's influence was trying to check
the current of intimacy which had flowed so easily between them only
half an hour ago.

It was with relief that he heard Ma clean say that they must leave.

The good-bye was as disappointing as he had feared. Their hands touched
briefly. Her eyes wouldn't meet his. George, he noticed with some
bitterness, was given a longer handshake and a generous smile.

David was sullen, and he knew it, which made him even more bad-tempered
as he walked with Fenton-Stevens and Ma clean to the jetty. He had begun
to feel that he had never been more foolish in his life than he had been
that afternoon. He groaned at the thought of his self-confidence, based
on so little. A pretty girl had at least a face to justify her hopes.

Mrs. McDonald waved her white apron from the door of her cottage as they
sailed out into the Sound and veered north for Loch Innish. Dr.
MacLntyre's house seemed deserted. Then the Devil's Elbow crooked out,
and the village was hidden behind it. Inchnamurren became a lonely
island on a lonely sea.

George was watching him curiously.

"I had rather a decent time," he said.

"Hadn't you?" "Yes," David said, "Dr. MacLntyre was very good value."
And he kept the conversation determinedly on Dr. MacLntyre throughout
the rest of the journey to the Lodge at Loch Innish.

Chapter Five.

THE PLEASURES OF FAMILY LIFE.

In Dr. MacLntyre's study Mrs. Lorrimer was finishing her monologue.

"And the first thing that frightens away a young man is a girl who sets
her cap at him," she concluded.

Penny turned away from the window as the small sailing- boat disappeared
behind the Devil's Elbow, ignored Moira's superior grin, and said
angrily, "I wasn't. Mother. We were walking and talking."

"You missed tea, and that was rudeness to both your grandfather and Mr.
Fenton-Stevens. I am not objecting to walking and talking. I am
objecting to bad manners."

Dr. MacLntyre rustled his newspaper impatiently. It had arrived by the
afternoon's boat, and so far there had not been ten consecutive minutes
to enjoy it. He noticed Penny's angry eyes. Time to change the subject,
he thought. He said, "Depression in America, depression here, and the
same trouble in Europe. It looks bad."

"Let's see. Grandpa." Moira leaned over his shoulder to read the news.

Moira had gone political since she had become a history student at
Edinburgh University. Her conversation was now a strange mixture of
international understanding and what were her chances in the Varsity
tennis team. Her grandfather studied her fair hair, her young-pretty
face so like Betty's.

But neither she nor Betty would keep that prettiness in middle age. They
hadn't the bones for it: they had their father's lack of features. Penny
was different. She had good bones, something that lasted--if she had a
happy life. He stopped thinking about faces as Moira's even breathing
down the back of his neck aroused him. He never could bear anyone
reading over his shoulder.

"Here, take it." He handed the paper to her.

"Now go away and read it somewhere else."

Moira looked surprised, but obeyed.

"You too. Penny. Go out and have a walk. Another one. And Moira," he
added, as the two girls reached the door, 'bring that paper back in half
an hour, properly folded, with the pages in the right order."

He rose and searched for his pipe.

"Bad enough to be disturbed in the middle of the leader without having
the paper made altogether unreadable."

"Then why did you give it to her, Father?" Mary asked.

"I wanted to have a talk with you, Mary."

Mrs. Lorrimer's surprise gave way to a vague uneasiness. She had not
heard this tone of voice for twenty years.

Dr. MacLntyre paused, and then he filled his pipe thoughtfully. His
intelligent blue eyes looked up suddenly at her from under his thick
white eyebrows.

"I think you worry toe much about the children, Mary. Why don't you go
alone witt Charles to North Berwick in August, and have a good holiday
together?

The girls can stay on here for another month. Il would do you all a
world of good."

*I don't see how it would."

"If I must be frank, Mary, then I shall say that the childrer are
getting on your nerves, and soon you will get on theirs That is the
quickest way to lose their affection, you know."

"Father, I think you are talking nonsense. What nerves^ Why should they
lose affection for me? I have been a goo mother, haven't I?"

"Excellent. An excellent wife too," he said soothingly.

"Bu damn it all, Mary, the girls are getting big enough to stanc on
their own feet. You can now sit back and enjoy yourself.

"Not yet," Mary said quietly.

"Certainly with Moira and Penelope. I agree Betty need; you for another
few years."

"And then there's no more need for me? Father, you don' know how cruel
you sound." Mary Lorrimer was indeec hurt.

"I am not cruel," Dr. MacLntyre said angrily.

"And remember, I know something about the upbringing of girls. You were
not such a bad specimen either, he thought, whei you were twenty.

"You see," he went on sadly, 'the most a father and moth el can do is to
give their children a good beginning health character, moral sense. You
cannot go on controlling thei] development. That is their own life. But
as long as they stici to the foundation you've given them they won't go
essentially wrong. You worry too much. God knows why. If youi daughters
were sneaking little hypocrites, or cross-eye nymphomaniacs you might
have cause for worry.

Damn i all, Mary, they have as good a chance of happiness as an^ girl.
Each one's life is what she makes of it."

"But they have such unsettled ideas. Penelope with her plans cent red on
London and this Slade School. Why can' she be content with the School of
Art at home? Why can' Moira find something suitable to do in Edinburgh,
instead o: thinking of the League of Nations? They are both pretty
girls, I must admit. They could marry suitable men, wh< would give them
security and a decent position in life. That would save them a lot of
tears."

"Perhaps they don't want your suitable young men. Perhaps they want to
decide for themselves, even if it does mean tears. Let them make their
own mistakes, Mary. They are old enough to pay for them."

"You didn't let me make any mistakes. Father."

He looked at her. He said quietly, "Well, if you feel you have made no
mistakes you must be a completely happy woman indeed."

Mary glanced at him sharply. But he was relighting his pipe intently.

She moistened her lips, pale and thin now--once they had had the same
curve as Betty's, ready to laugh, eager to smile--and her eyes widened
for a moment so that they lost the narrow, worried look which had robbed
them of youth.

Then she looked down at her smooth, well-manicured hands lying folded in
her lap. She picked a small white thread off her brown skirt (the
material was excellent, always a pleasure to look at, she thought),
folded her hands again in that very composed way, and studied the toes
of her long, narrow shoes.

Even the way she sat, rather erect, with her ankles delicately crossed,
annoyed Dr. MacLntyre at this moment.

With an effort he said gently, "Don't you trust the girls? If you don't
trust them, then you must feel you have failed in bringing them up."

"Of course I trust them."

"Then stop worrying, Mary. Why don't you have this holiday alone with
Charles? It's good for married people, anyway, to get away by
themselves." You could even, with the money you will spend at North
Berwick, have a holiday in Salzburg or Ragusa ...  But he knew it was
useless suggesting that.

"But we all enjoy being together. Father." Her voice held quiet reproof.

T know that. But look, Mary----" God in heaven, what was the use?

Mary was right: Mary had such well-selected friends; Mary had such a
comfortable, large, and well-run house; Mary had three healthy and
pretty daughters; Mary had a faithful husband with money; Mary was a
virtuous woman.

How could Mary be wrong?

"But what. Father?"

"Nothing, my dear, nothing."

"You couldn't possibly mean that I am to take no interest in what
happens to Moira or to Penelope. It wouldn't be natural ..."

"It wouldn't. I didn't say you were to drop all interest. I said you
should not take more interest than they now need. If they want your
advice and help they will come to you. And they will value it all the
more then. Look at us at this very moment. I am giving you advice which
you did not ask for, so you don't like it and probably won't listen to
it." He smiled. The point was well proven.

But Mary didn't smile. She rose to her feet, and said, "I must see about
supper. We are having one of your old favourites to-night.

Father. I must go and find out if Maggie has remembered to put in enough
seasoning."

Maggie cooked well enough, Dr. MacLntyre reflected, for eleven months of
the year. Strange how incapable she became each July. He contented
himself with clearing his throat.

His daughter had reached the door. She said suddenly. "Besides, our
circumstances are quite different. I am a middle- aged woman. The girls
have their lives before them."

Dr. MacLntyre stared at the door, which she closed firmly, gently,
behind her.

His point had not been so well proven after all, it seemed.

Penelope brought back his newspaper, neatly folded, and then she hovered
round the room, looking at some books, straightening a pile of music,
rearranging the flowers on his desk.

Dr. MacLntyre looked at the paper, laid it aside, and said in a resigned
voice, "Well, what is it. Penny?"

"Oh  ...  nothing. I'm sorry. I was just leaving."

"Were you?" Then he relented and said, "Come and sit over here. Only
stop fiddling about in that way." The end of July would come soon
enough, and he would be left in peace then. Besides, he reminded
himself, there were days in the long winter when he would have been very
glad to have some one fiddling about. After all, he was fond of his
grandchildren, fond of Mary too, even if she irritated him more and
more. And they did make this effort to come and see him every July. He
should be thankful that Charles did not make the effort.

"You aren't disturbing me in the least."

He lied with sudden good grace. Penny was his favourite granddaughter,
although he did his best to hide that. He never had to explain his jokes
to her. Besides, it flattered his vanity to look at her, to think that
he was one-quarter responsible for this young woman's existence. How
extraordinary the way these young things suddenly grew up! He smiled as
she crossed the room towards him. At this moment she was so very
serious: Mary's public lecture must be still rankling.

"I was thinking of the days," he said lightly, 'when you called
everything "ripping" or "marvelous," from Spenser and Shelley to
chocolates and ice-cream. And food was "scrumptious," and all the boys
you liked were "simply spiffing," and all the boys you didn't like
were--now what was that particularly apt remark? --they were "absolute
drips." And what was it you felt for your more attractive schoolteachers
and film-stars? A "crush"

"

He had made her smile. That was better, much better, "It wasn't so very
long ago, either," he went on.

"You certainly have grown up in these last three years."

To his alarm, she suddenly came forward and kissed his ear. She must be
really upset about something. A display of affection was not in the
Lorrimer tradition.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"For cheering me up." She sat down on the hearth rug her legs lay
together sideways; one hand rested on her ankle; the other hand,
stretched flat on the ground beside her, supported the weight of her
body. She was a graceful creature, he thought. She reminded him more and
more of her grandmother, of his own Penelope. At this moment he
remembered vividly when his Penelope had been Penny's age. And he had
been young, as young as these two men who had visited him to-day.
Fastened to a dying animal, he thought. And he looked down at Penny and
felt a twinge of old age.

"Well," he said quickly, trying to recall their conversation. Like her
grandmother, a pretty creature, graceful. Now she was sitting here, full
of life and vitality, forty years of possible happiness still before
her. She had sat down there-- oh, yes, after she had kissed him For
cheering me up.

"Well," he asked, 'and how did I do that?"

"By saying that I'm grown up. And by letting me stay with you." She
glanced towards the door.

"Mother is on the warpath, you see. Clouds of gloom everywhere."

"Your mother has a big responsibility bringing up three girls to be
intelligent young women. That's quite a strain on anyone, I imagine."

Penny let him enjoy his mild joke.

"But," she said, 'if we were three boys she wouldn't worry this way. So
it's ridiculous. Because men and women--well, what's the difference
nowadays?"

"I believe there is still a slight one. Vive a petite difference!"

"Grandfather! You know what I mean."

That's the reason she's my favourite, he thought affectionately, as he
watched her laughing eyes. That jersey was a pretty colour--matched
them.

Gentian blue. Pretty, against the sun-tanned skin and the pink cheeks.

Women always ought to wear pretty colours. There should be a law against
wearing orange or puce, or all those dirty-looking shades which were
just about as subtle as the floor of a cow-byre.

He asked, "What did you really want to see me about?"

Her eyes were now watching him carefully, hesitantly.

"It is all right," he said.

"I am in a good mood. Penny."

She smiled for a moment, and then she became very serious.

"I want your help," she admitted.

"I want you to persuade Mother to let me go to London next winter."

To the Slade School?"

"Yes. I am not just playing with the idea. I did work hard all last
winter in these art classes, you know, and my work has improved. At
least, I think so. Hasn't it?"

"Yes." Surprisingly so. Penelope had definite talent: she had a sense of
line and a quite remarkable feeling for colour. She might be a painter
some day, given really good training and hard work. And experience in
life. That would come, of course. As he studied her pretty face, now so
very serious and anxious, he hoped experience would deal kindly with
her.

"Mother seems to think that painting is only some kind of social
accomplishment, like being able to play a sweet little piece of music on
the piano after dinner. And Father just doesn't like painters. He says
they are as bad as actors. Not respectable.

"Bohemian" is what he calls them."

T didn't know people still used that word," her grandfather said, with a
smile, and checked her rising indignation.

"Your father reminds me of George the First, who hated all " boets and
bainters."

" You are just an old Highlander. I suppose the Stuarts always
pronounced English correctly?"

"Well, they at least could speak it." He paused.

"Even if that was just about all they could do," he added.

"So your father dislikes all boets and bainters, does he?"

Penny regained her seriousness, but the anger had left her face. Her
grandfather settled back in his chair, now ready to listen.

"Well," she said, 'he hates having them in his family. He says that
painting is no good for a career if I want a career. You see, either I
stay comfortably at home until I get married or I choose a career that
can support me instead of a husband."

"It is either-or, I suppose?" How like Charles, he thought.

"That is how Father seems to see it. And Mother thinks it a waste of
time studying for any career, because women generally have to give up a
serious career when they get married. But I thought that painting--well,
that's one thing that I----" she hesitated.

"That you could go on with even after you marry?" her grandfather
suggested.

"If you do marry." He looked at her mischievously. He would be willing
to wager that Pene- lope wouldn't have to worry very much about a
career.

And yet it was good for a woman to have trained her mind: that was
something that was never lost. It was so typical of Charles Lorrimer to
think that education was only valuable in relation to its earning power.

"Yes," Penny said.

"Only, Father says painting is not a wise investment for the future.
That is, in ease I don't marry-- after all, you just don't marry any man
who asks you: you've got to find one you really want to marry as much as
he wants to marry you. So Father says that painting is too precarious
for a career."

"Well, it is. In that he is being very practical. It is like all the
arts--a good walking-stick, but a bad crutch."

"But if I don't mind risking all that? Why can't I at least try?"

Why not, her grandfather wondered. If she was serious and willing to
work, why not?

"What do you intend School?" he asked.

"If I am good enough Please don't laugh. And i I wouldn't have a chanci
she raised her eyes, an least I can try."

Why not, he wondered "Well," he said at last, you?"

She sensed his approval and enthusiastically. She about entrance into
the S lations about the cost of it would be more ex pens for Moira, when
you coi parties.

"Does that matter? Sui " He is always worrying That was what he and N
chance to go to Paris wit! respectable ones, too." St. an edge of
bitterness in father.

"Or perhaps they did the family. Oh, nonsensi chair in sudden anger.

"' to let you go to the Slad Damn these Lowlanders of guilt." He ceased
ab happy. She was a loyal cr

"Sorry, Penny," he sai impatience on my imprai a very wise man in his
agree to let you go to ] you really are serious ab "Then you will back
n-" Yes." He came forwal to her feet, and they wa The sun was now low i
turned the red cliffs acre Dr. MacLntyre was thi she gets to London, to
any place where she can have a chance to be free. If she stays with her
family she will have all the life crushed out of her. She will be filled
with inhibitions. She will be blackmailed by security. And all her
vitality will be drained out of her, and her mind will become a dead
thing, and she will be--charmingly, sweetly, prettily--only half alive.
Charles Lorrimer has moulded Mary. He is not going to repeat that
pattern with Penelope if I can help it.

"You will find London hard, you know," he said.

"You will be less comfortable than you are at home. And you may be
lonely at first.

England can be a lonely place."

T know." She hugged his arm.

"But there are other things too. If I don't make a fight for them now,
then I'll never get them. Later on I'd be too old to fight. Or I would
have forgotten how."

"I imagine you have still quite a way to go before you reach that stage.
But it is just as well to make up your mind early in life. One life is
too short. Penny; two would be much better. In the second one you could
put into practice what the first one had taught you." He turned away
from the window, and he walked back to the fireplace. His voice became
serious. "Now remember, my girl, if you go to London and have this
freedom you are crying for, don't confuse freedom with foolishness. You
won't, will you?"

Penny shook her head solemnly. And then she smiled, with so much humour
in her expressive face that she smiled too.

"Well," he said, 'that's that!" and settled into his armchair.

"Thank you. You are a darling," Penny said. But she still did not leave.

Dr. MacLntyre looked pointedly at his abandoned newspaper.

"Did you have a nice afternoon?" Penny went on.

What's coming now, he wondered.

"Very pleasant, thank you."

"I'm afraid your work was badly interrupted today."

To have one's simple pleasures interrupted is worse, her grandfather
thought.

He answered casually, "Oh, I rather enjoyed it. Bosworth is interesting.
What we call " good material." I can see why Chaundler takes such an
interest in him. The most rewarding thing about being a teacher, you
know, is to winnow the grain from the chaff."

"Then you did like him?"

The rich light from the western window filled the room.

Its colours now became alive, warm and soft, as they la- bathed in the
golden rays. It was the best moment of th day, he thought.

Penny said anxiously, "Or didn't you like him?" He roused himself.

"Like whom? Young Bosworth? 0' course I liked him. Would I have spent
two hours with him if I hadn't?" He closed his eyes. Time for forty
winks .. one of the rights of advancing age  ...  very pleasant, too. Hi
stretched his legs comfortably as the door closed behind Penny, and
settled in his chair contentedly.

In the hall, square-shaped and furnished like a sitting-roon so that the
visitors would not be eternally in the study, Moir; was sitting with
more comfort than elegance on the smal couch. Some official-looking
periodicals and Blue Books lai beside her, but on her lap was a fashion
magazine. She lookec up guiltily, and then, seeing it was only her
sister, openec the magazine again.

"Don't work too hard," Penny said.

Moira glanced at the periodicals.

"I've some notes to makf before supper," she said.

"Provided, of course, that I am no interrupted."

She looked pointedly at Penny, who had sa down on the arm of the couch
and had picked up a Leagui of Nations pamphlet on minorities in Europe.

"You'll manage it," Penny told her.

"You still have fiyi minutes left."

"As late as thatt Moira looked indignant. She said sharply " What on
earth were you talking about in the study? I wai timing myself by you."

"About London. I say, Moira'--Penny had picked up i bulletin on
white-slave traffic, hidden under the other) pamphlets, and opened it
with interest--'you do have to reac pretty widely for modern history,
don't you?"

Moira took the bulletin quickly out of her hands and replaced it under
the others.

"I wish you'd leave things alone, she said crossly.

"And what about London? Do you mean yoi really are trying to go there
next winter? You could ver^ well put in another year in Edinburgh and go
later.

As I an doing."

"Are you?"

"Look, stop fiddling with my papers and let me do som< work! I've done
absolutely nothing all month, and I have so much to do."

Penny picked up the fashion magazine, and turned over its glossy pages.
For a moment she had been afraid that Moira would jump to the right
conclusion.

And then Moira trust Moira looked up again and said, "Don't tell me you
and David Bosworth were talking economics!"

"Of course not."

"He is taking a degree in something like that, isn't he? Wasn't that
what George Fenton-Stevens told us?"

"Did he?" Penny seemed not in the least interested.

"Look, Moira.

Isn't that a marvelous dress? I'd love one like that."

Moira glanced at the advertisement.

"Black," she said.

"Much too old.

You'd never be allowed to have it. What did he talk about, then? You
were an awfully long time with him."

"Oh, nothing very much. Just this and that." Penny's voice was bored.

Moira waited, but there was no more information. Had he really been
dull, after all? Her irritation with Penny began to pass. She said, her
voice dropping into the usual tone of one- sister-to-another, "You know,
he is rather attractive, isn't he? Which is strange, because he isn't
what you would call good- looking. Of course, he is very tall.

Tall men don't have to be handsome, somehow." "Here is some one still
taller," Penny said, showing her sister another advertisement.

"The women in these drawings are always eight feet tall, always
absolutely slender, always young and beautiful. Do you think that real
women imagine they will look like that if they could only buy these
dresses?"

"Well, you ought to know. You rather fancied yourself in that black
dress, didn't you?"

"It would look nice even on some one who was only five feet five and a
half inches," Penelope said stubbornly.

"And it takes a young complexion to wear black attractively."

"Just try that idea on Mummy, and see how far you get with it."

Penny discarded the magazine and wandered over to the front-door.

Then she walked out over the slope of green grass. She looked towards
the Sound. I am as restless as the sea, she thought. How I wish I were
old. At least twenty-five, perhaps even thirty. No, thirty was too old.
Twenty-five was better. When you were old you wouldn't have this crushed
feeling inside you; you would not need to make up dreams about life.
When you were young they always ended the wrong way somehow. How often
she had sat on the west shore, painting, dreaming, talking inside to
herself.

And she had always ended by thinking what a perfect place it was to have
some one else to talk to, some one who knew what you wanted to be said,
some one who didn't interrupt or laugh at the wrong places and who would
talk as if he knew what you were thinking. And sometimes he would not
talk at all, leaving well enough alone. To-day had been that kind of
day. And, of course, it had to be spoiled.

Perhaps David Bosworth had become bored: he must know so many girls in
Oxford and London, pretty girls, amusing girls, girls old enough to wear
smart little black dresses. Or who wore them, whether they were old
enough or not.

She looked down at her woollen sweater and flannel skirt, at her
flat-heeled brogues and smooth stockings. Bare legs were indecent, they
said. She shook her head and sighed. If she were old, then she would
never feel that she was being laughed at.

Had he been laughing at her?

"Oh, damn!" she said suddenly, and then looked quickly round. There was
no one there to overhear.

"Damn and blast!" she said.

There was only one thing to be thankful for. Moira had not seen how
happy she was when she came back from that walk. Then her sister would
have questioned and teased her for days, until she would come to hate
the sound of Bosworth. And how Mother would have lectured: silly ideas,
romantic nonsense. Perhaps they were silly and romantic.

But that did not explain why she should have been so happy, and then, as
David walked away with George Fenton-Stevens and Captain Ma clean not
happy at all. That couldn't be explained. And you couldn't ask advice
about it, either. Not even from Grandfather. This wasn't something like
going to London. This was something you hid inside yourself and never
even let anyone guess about. And never, most of all, David Bosworth.

Betty was calling, "Penny, you are late again."

Penny turned towards the house.

"What's wrong. Penny? Are you all right? Supper is ready, and we are all
waiting."

"Of course I'm all right."

Betty blew out the corner of her mouth at a heavy lock of fair hair, too
short to be held in place. Last week she had cut a fringe to look like
Cleopatra's, and then she had not liked it. Now she was plagued by its
refusal to be brushed back.

"I've finished another chapter of my book," she announced. "It's
thrilling.

You will read it to-night, won't you?" Penny would always read things
when you asked her to, but Moira would always say that she would read
them when they were published some day, Betty thought, I'll be a writer,
a real writer with words all in print, and I'll show Moira.

"All right," Penny said, hiding her amusement. For Betty remembered she
was going to be a writer every two months or so, and then she would dash
off another chapter. Its length depended on the time she had to spare.

"How long is this chapter?"

"Pages and pages--three or four. My hero is caught in the rapids.

He's almost killed. And I have a new idea for the title. Perils of the
Amazon. How do you like that?"

"What was the first one, again?"

"First it was Smugglers of the Orinoco, and then I thought of Dwellers
of the Zambezi, and then----"

" It is the same story, isn't it?"

Betty looked at Penny in surprise as they entered the house.

"Why, of course!"

"Versatile  ..." Penny said. She restrained herself until they had
entered the dining-room, and then she could pretend to be smiling to
every one round the table.

"Betty and I were discussing titles. I say, Betty, why don't you just
list all the titles, and that would be a story in itself? You could call
it Variations on a Theme."

"Sh!" her mother said warningly, and inclined her head towards their
waiting grandfather. Penny bowed her head as the others were doing, but
her eyes were not closed, and she studied her mother's face as it
registered thankfulness. It was just as Penny had thought when she had
first entered the dining-room: her mother had been crying. She
remembered, then, that there had been no reproach for being late for
supper. She looked quickly towards her grandfather. He had finished
saying Grace, and he was now admitting nothing beyond the excellence of
the food.

Penny was very subdued and very polite for the rest of the evening.

*I wonder if Penelope is catching something," Mrs. Lorrimer confided to
her father, as the girls at last went upstairs to bed, and she prepared
to follow them.

"Probably just thinking. It is a painful process for anyone. Good night,
Mary. And don't worry, my dear."

But Dr. MacLntyre, as he lifted his pipe from the ashtray and stretched
his legs before the fire, which had been lit against the chilly night
air, was puzzling over Penny, too. Why had she paid that special visit
to him this evening? London ostensibly. But David Bosworth indirectly?
Stuff and nonsense, he thought irritably. And then he tried to imagine
how he had felt and thought and acted when he was nineteen. But those
years were too far away.

And it was only in moments like those he had experienced this
afternoon--Bosworth's energy, his revolt against the state of
acceptance; Penny's vitality and warmth--that he could have the fleeting
sensation of remembering exact emotions in his own youth. As if each
year dropped a thin veil over the preceding year, and as you got farther
away from the years of youth the accumulation of veils became a
thickness substantial enough to conceal and hide. Only in certain
moments, when some memory stirred, was that thickness slit through.
Suddenly, and only for a brief interval.

"There I am," you said, looking at youth. And then you looked at
yourself and said, "No." And you added, "There I was." And so you let
the slit in the veils close again, and let your thoughts keep the even
pace of your body. The veils, some bright, some sombre, fell together;
and they lost all particular colour and merged into a gentle grey.

Dr. MacLntyre looked at the photograph on the mantelpiece. You'll never
be a philosopher, he told himself: you were too happy with her.

He smiled as he looked up at his wife. "Weren't we, lass?" he said.

Chapter Six.

TALK FOR A GREY DAY.

The Lodge at Loch Innish was a pugnacious place. You felt it could face
any odds--Norsemen, raiding clans, winter storms, or the yearly invasion
of its grouse moors. Even its recent embellishments of lawn and
driveway, of tennis-court and rose-garden, could not alter its essential
function. It was the guardian of the road which led from the deep,
narrow sea loch to the scattered crofts and villages lying inland.

When the mists hung over the loch, blotting out the sharp mountains
falling steeply towards its dark waters, this feeling of watchful
loneliness increased. With the security of foot- thick stone walls
around you, and a solid roof over your head, you could even take a
peculiar pleasure in watching the swirling mists, for it was always
pleasant to have your comfort and security emphasized. And if you had
work to do the days of mist were welcome; for there was no temptation to
go climbing or fishing or swimming, or to have a game of tennis, or to
lie among the heather where the air was warm and sweet. Sweeter and
cleaner, David thought, than anything he had ever felt around him, so
that it became a conscious pleasure just to be alive, just to be able to
breathe.

To-day was a day of mist, but David found, to his great irritation, that
he was thoroughly unsettled. Here he was standing at the window again,
looking out at the half-formed shapes and ghostly outlines of a world
which had disappeared and depended on human memory for its existence.
This morning he had thought that the usual daily routine would occupy
this mind of his, and that the attack of gloom which had descended on
him, very much as the mist had descended on the loch, would clear.

But to-day an attack of restlessness had spread through the Lodge.

Tea was over, yet the boys were certainly not doing much work, judging
by the racket they were making in the music-room. George had settled
philosophically in the more comfortable chair by the lighted fire in the
library, with a pile of magazines on the small table at his elbow,
although he actually had had enough good intentions to have a copy of
The Greek Commonwealth lying open on his knees And David had spent the
last half-hour reading and rereading the same page in Aristotle's
Politics, and then had riser from his chair and started walking round
the library shelves.

He had picked out a book here and there, glanced at it, pul it back into
its place in its row. Well-filled rows, too, nol only in number, but in
choice.

The library had been stockec by the yard, but adequately, thanks to the
advice Lad; Fenton-Stevens had taken from the Times Book Club. Guests
marooned by the rain would find plenty to read. David had been surprised
and delighted when he had first arrived, and had blessed Lady
Fenton-Stevens's advisers. It wasn't toe cruel to admit that she
couldn't have made this choice her self. She probably had not read ten
books in the last ter years.

She knew all about the books being published, oi course--enough to make
an amusing phrase in conversation But to read them completely was a very
different matter "One is so frightfully busy, you know," she had
munnurec vaguely to David last Christmas, just after she had returnee
from Paris and was about to set out for St. Moritz.

There they were, all in their neat rows: Faulkner, Mann Proust,
Stendhal, Hemingway, Morgan, Remains ...  Practically virgin, too: David
had read them with a paper-kniff beside him, scanning a favourite page
in those he knew seizing upon those he had not been able to buy or
borrow. Ii was comfortable, pleasant, to sit in the library beside the
dying fire once George had trundled off to bed and the boy were also out
of sight and hearing. It was more than pleasant all the tutoring and
coaching and justification for his existence were over for the day. He
could spend a couple of hours here in peace, and take his choice in
Stendhal 01 Dorothy Sayers, in Tolstoy or Wodehouse, before going u{
through the sleeping house to his own room. He hadn't beer reduced, like
Dr. Johnson, to reading a History of Birmingham This afternoon, however,
even the choice of books hadn' helped him.

Here he was, standing at this window, looking out at a wet, grey
curtain. He must find something to read He left the window and went back
to the bookshelves. Hi pulled out A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man an opened it at random.

"Pride and hope and desire like crushec herbs in his heart sent up
va pours of maddening inc ens before the eyes of his mind." David
grimaced and turned over to another page impatiently. It always was
unfair, he reminded himself, to take a sentence out of context: the
easy, the cheap, way to embarrass an author. Ah, here was what he was
looking for ... "Now I call that friendly, don't you? Yes, I liked her
to-day. A little or much? Don't know. I liked her, and it seemed a new
feeling to me.

Then, in that case, all the rest, all that I thought I thought and all
that I felt I felt, all the rest before now, in fact . 0, give it up,
old chap!

Sleep it off!"  ...  Yes, David thought savagely, sleep it off. He
closed the book. Bitter advice, which Joyce himself refused merely by
stating it.

Only those who had never let themselves be possessed by thoughts and
feelings, only those could sleep it off.

He glanced over at George. George, now, could sleep off anything.

"I say, David, could you stop wandering round? Damned if I can
concentrate," George said.

"Sorry."

Something in David's voice made Fenton-Stevens twist round in his chair
to look at him. George dropped his book and rose, upsetting the tankard
which he had placed on the floor near his feet.

"Damnation," he said, and pulled his handkerchief out of the cuff of his
sleeve, and dropped it over the spreading pool of beer.

"Lucky there wasn't much left," he said.

"Revolting mess." He crossed over to the window.

"Nothing much to see out there."

"No."

"Come over to the fire. Have some beer. Chuck that book away. I don't
feel like working much, either. It is difficult today, when we had all
the arrangements made for that picnic on Inchnamurren. Besides, we
worked enough yesterday to make up for any old day off the chain. So
let's enjoy ourselves. Come along."

They went back to the fireplace together. George kicked the sodden
handkerchief out of sight behind the pile of logs on the broad,
flagstoned hearth. He threw a chunk of wood on the low embers of the
fire.

"That will cheer the place up," he said.

"God, imagine having to sit before a fire in July. We might as well be
in Greenland."

David rested his hand against the carved stone panel above the fireplace
and stared down at the flickering small tongues of flame lapping round
the logs. Then he became aware of George's puzzled interest. He searched
for something to say. The noise from the music-room was now at the
hilarious stage: Chris and his cousin were happily boring holes off-
centre on some records, and playing them from that new axis.

David said, "How many records do you think those blockheads have ruined?
Or doesn't it matter?"

George thought for a moment, and then moved quickly towards the door.

"If they've touched any of mine I'll knock their brains out. What they
have of them."

When he returned to the room he looked pleased with his persuasive
efforts.

"They've decided to go down to visit Captain Ma clean cottage, so we
shall;'h ave peace for a couple of hours. The Washboard Beaters fetd Red
Nichols and the new Gershwin are still intact. They were experimenting
on Wagner, thank God."

"N01 the Meistersinger or Tristan, I hope."

"No, they were concentrating on the Valkyrie and the Rhine maidens."

"Symbolic, perhaps."

George looked at him blankly, and then laughed.

"Revolt against women? You are probably right. Chris is at the
vulnerable stage, as you call it. If you stayed for the Twelfth, when
all the girls arrive on the scene, you'd be amused by his contortions.
He is fascinated by them and he is afraid of them, all at the same time.
Oh, chuck away that book and draw your chair up, David. It isn't a good
working day.

Pity about the picnic. And the Lorrimers leave to-morrow, so it is off
altogether. Probably would have been an awful bore, anyway. Flies in the
tea and midges down the back of your neck." David said nothing. He was
wondering if Penelope Lorrimer felt any of this strange disappointment
which had angered him all day. And then he reminded himself once more
that she had probably forgotten all about him by this time.

Girls, if you could believe what you read--and how else were you able to
find out about them when they all looked as if life were a very simple
affair? --girls did not brood over what might be or what might not.
Perhaps they did not know what they wanted out of life when they were
young. And that was a pity, because when they were young they had poetry
in their life: they had intensity and emotion. Later they lost that
warmth: they so often became more like a passage of elegant prose,
amusing or thoughtful, but always with the poetry in them well under
control. So well controlled sometimes that it had died. Which was more
than a pity.

"Penny for them," George said. Then, as David looked startled and did
not reply, he repeated, "I said a penny for your thoughts."

David drew a deep breath. If he had met any other pretty girl last week
would he now be behaving in this fantastic way? Possibly, for the island
was a magic place and he had been bewitched. Yet, probably not. He had
seen plenty of pretty girls. But last week he had seen Penny.

"I was thinking about a topic which men never discuss," he said.

George looked startled.

"Just what could that be?"

"Women."

George stopped worrying about David. This was the old David back again,
true to form.

"I was thinking," David continued, 'about Chris and his agonies in sex.
He hasn't learned to hide them yet. You and I have. But that doesn't
mean we have lost all our uncertainties or fears. We are still afraid of
being laughed at. Because, I suppose, we feel we are choosing by
emotion, and we have been told often enough that that is wrong. Yet,
frankly, I don't see how else we can choose: meeting a girl you like is
an emotional experience, isn't it? Reason has nothing to do with it
unless you are a fish like individual. At a time when we have enough hot
blood to enjoy life fully we are surrounded by a conspiracy of age to
settle the rules and regulations as if love were a game or a business.
It isn't. It's a state of being. With it you're alive. Without it you
exist." "Here!" George said, in alarm. He had never heard David talk
this way before: he was too damned serious, even if he kept a smile on
his lips and a light tone in his voice.

"I say, David, you aren't still worrying about Eleanor, are you? As her
brother I can frankly say that she isn't worth much worry."

"Good God, no!" David was vehement enough to be believed this time. It
was true. Eleanor had now become a period piece. Last night he had even
torn up the verses which he had written to celebrate his disillusionment
and unhappiness over that affair. Last night he had read them, and their
imitation.

Verlaine had only made him acutely embarrassed. Tripe garnished with the
brains of calf-love. It had been a lucky escape for him when Eleanor had
decided there was more fun in the world than one man could offer.
Eleanor, that little nitwit?

"Good God, no," he repeated.

"Oh, she isn't a bad scout really," George said, rising automatically to
the defence of his family.

"But she wouldn't have done at all. You were too serious about it."

That's the trouble." David wasn't thinking of Eleanor Fenton-Stevens
now.

"When do you know whether you should be serious or not serious about a
girl?

You don't, in fact. Either you have to pass her by altogether or take
the chance of being serious."

"Well, don't take being serious about a girl too seriously," George
suggested.

"After all, a man knows he can't marry until his career is well
established.

But there's no ban on following your fancy when you are still at the
unmarriageable stage." "Thanks," David said dryly, 'but I've no taste
for camp- followers.

That has about as much satisfaction as pouring your favourite wine into
a public drinking-cup. Or helping yourself to strawberries and cream on
a plate still greasy from bacon and eggs. How would you enjoy food
served that way, George?"

"You needn't argue from extremes," George said placidly.

"I wasn't talking about camp-followers."

"It is only a difference of degree, not of kind. What else are women who
serve round the same smiles and kisses to several men? They have got a
price too, you know, in theatre tickets and flowers and chocolates and
dinners you buy them. You and five other chaps."

"Look, David, you can't expect a pretty girl to sit at home and not go
out.

And you can't expect one chap to have the cash to take her out every
night in the style to which she has accustomed herself. If she is pretty
and amusing you are damned lucky to be allowed to form up in the queue."

"The true richness of experience."

"Don't be so damned sarcastic," George said irritably.

"Besides, you know damned well that you like a pretty girl as much as
the next man.

You run a mile from the unattractive ones. I've seen you, old boy. In
fact, it was only last week that I said, when we were arguing, that
after all a plain girl often had rather a good brain. And you said that
the trouble was we didn't sleep with brains."

"My trouble is that I know what I want. If I don't make excuses for
liking Brahms or Chopin why should I make excuses for liking beauty in
women?

That's the trouble: I know what I like, and I don't often find it.
That's all."

George searched in his pocket for his pipe, and filled it thoughtfully
from a pouch whose striped colours matched the college tie he was
wearing. (George had only two ties for day wear which did not belong to
school, college, or his five clubs: a grey one for weddings and a black
one for funerals. ) "Well," he said, with resignation, 'you can't find
everything in one woman.

It takes all kinds to make experience. If you have several girls, or
even a succession of girls if your conscience is squeamish about playing
several fish at a time, you'll end your life by having had everything.
What more do you want?"

"Nothing. Except that I don't think that is the way to get everything."
David looked at him speculatively, and decided to risk going on.

"Really, George, you have got to admit that if people put as much
thought and concentration into their sex lives as they do into their
careers there would be a good deal more happiness in middle age. After
all, why shouldn't we make a real effort to have a successful love life?
We aren't eunuchs, and we may as well admit that."

"Hardly. But you can't rationalize like that, David. A job or a career
can be planned. But love can't."

"No career is certain of success. We work and hope and aim for
something; and often we get it. But we wouldn't have a chance of getting
it if we hadn't done our best. For instance, if a man works hard at
medical school he will probably be a good doctor some day; but no man
becomes a doctor by just wishing to be one. That's the point I am
making. All I am saying is that if we looked at love that way we might
have a better chance of success in it.

And the proof that a lot of us aren't successful in it is not very hard
to find.

How many burst-up marriages do you know, George? Isn't it all a damned
waste of energy and emotion?"

George considered the fire thoughtfully. He said at last, "But we do
think and worry about sex all the time. And where does it get us?
Certainly not the sure success you believe in.

Look, I bet sixty per cent of the human race 1. 1. think about sex and
love more often than they think of anything else." "Ninety per cent,"
David said, 'if you take into account all the disguised approaches."

"All right. Ninety per cent think about it, or purposely avoid thinking
about it. And where does that get us?"

"Just thinking about it isn't a real solution. Surely there's a happy
medium somewhere, George, between those who think about sex too much,
like some French politician with his string of mistresses, and those who
avoid thinking about it and try to convert every one else to be the same
as they are.

Surely it wasn't meant to be abused by fools or cowards."

George frowned. And then he gave up trying to answer and said, "I see
old MacLntyre's words are taking root." "What do you mean?" David asked
quickly.

"All that stuff he told you about living a complete life. Why, a week
ago you sat on that very chair and told me that if a man was serious
about his career he had no time to worry about women. Now you have
reached the opinion that if love were taken as seriously as a career it
would be damned sight better for all of us. You aren't by any chance
thinking of taking your own advice, are you?"

David laughed, and bent down to pick up his beer-mug from the floor.

"It's only talk," he said, 'talk for a grey day and a warm fireside.

Besides," he went on, his voice suddenly casual, 'even if a man had an
idea of how to be happy though young, in what way could he manage it?
Tell me, George, suppose you found that Kitty, or Dorothy, or Phyllis,
was just the girl you wanted for life, what would you do?

No, old boy, no jokes. This is a serious question--at least, an
interesting one. Would you make the effort to keep her, or would you
just let her slip away because you knew it might be years before you
were making enough to get married?"

George stared.

"Heaven help us if we got into that fix. Better not let yourself fall in
love--seriously, that is--until you can afford it. If you believe in
arranging your love life that would certainly be the first thing to
remember." He thought over that for a moment, and then added, "Here's to
the pretty girls who won't take us seriously until we can afford it!
Come on, drink up, David!"

"No more for me at the moment, thanks," David said, as he looked moodily
at the fire. Then he roused himself, and said briskly, "What I need is a
walk. Coming?"

"In this weather? No, thank you. I'll supply you with aspirin and a hot
toddy when you get back." George settled himself comfortably in his
armchair, picked up a magazine, and began to inspect the lovelies of
London so invitingly displaying their charms.

David paused behind him, glanced over his shoulder. "Studying the
disguised approach, I see."

Fenton-Stevens pointed to one photograph.

"Not bad," he said appraisingly. He studied the name underneath.

"Good Lord, I'm supposed to know that girl. Well, the photographer
certainly earned his money."

David looked critically at an ethereal blonde in her off- shoulder
evening dress.

"Not bad at all," he agreed.

"One more struggle and the lady will be free."

George was smiling as the door dosed behind David. Thank Heaven, David
was himself again. For a moment or two there, in that last half-hour,
George had begun to worry about him. A walk would probably do him good:
liver or something.

David followed the path which led him through the gardens on to the
moors.

There it became a narrow track, a thin ribbon of bleached red gravel,
skirting the edge of the granite cliffs through knee-high heather and
low blaeberry bushes. To his right was the sea in its grim grey mood. On
his left were the rising hills, their crests still hidden by cloud. The
mist along the sea-edge had lifted and given way to a drizzling rain.

There had been no help from George, he thought. But then he had not
asked for direct advice. In any case, what good would it have done?

Every man had his own idea about life and what he wanted out of it.

Happiness, yes: that was the general ambition. We all wanted to win
happiness, but we all found very different ways of trying to reach it.
Life wasn't a neat, single track like this path along the cliffs.

It was more like a twisting road shut in by high hedges, so that the
view ahead was seldom clear a road constantly broken by side-roads, with
no signposts, either, to help you out. For direction you had to depend
on your own questions and answers.

He wasn't even putting this question in his own mind openly to himself.
He was disguising it with arguments and generalizations. The whole thing
was ridiculous, anyway. People did not behave this way.

Or perhaps they did, and kept it as their own secret. Certainly he had
never felt like this before. That was what worried him most. His mind
might keep telling him it was all ridiculous, an exaggeration, a
delusion. But he didn't believe it. All right, you want to see her
again, he admitted.

But how?

That, he suddenly realized, was the real problem that was worrying him.
He halted then, and stood for many minutes with the strong wind whipping
his soaking raincoat around his legs. He stood listening to the strong,
heavy blows of the waves against the cliff, falling away in front of him
into the surging force of water. The perpetual thunder silenced even the
high screams of the seagulls. Out to sea there was the long, dark shape
of Inchnamurren.

He stared at it; then he turned away abruptly and started back towards
the Lodge.

Chapter Seven.

DAVID MAKES UP HIS MIND.

That night, after the others had gone to bed, David Bos- worth wrote two
letters. The first was to his sister Margaret: dear meg, I shall
definitely be home about the 8th of August, as we arranged.

Work has been going quite well, and we have been fairly lucky in
weather, so that I've collected a decent enough tan and stretched the
old muscles over a hill or two. The boys are responding to wild curses,
and I feel I've earned my money with them. I only hope Lady F. -S.
remembers that some people really need cash, and will send me the cheque
in time to bring home as a trophy. Then you can have your holiday before
summer gives way to mists and mellow fruitfulness. I wish you could
persuade Father to go with you.

But if he doesn't feel strong enough for the journey, then it is
probably better to let him stay in London with me.

Sorry to hear that you have all been sweltering for the last month.

But two weeks ..

Here David stopped and considered. He had been six weeks up here. Meg
would count them, comparing the difference subconsciously. She would
also think of these six weeks as pure holiday: she didn't consider that
tutoring was work.

At least, she had never admitted it. He remembered her last letter. How
lucky he was . to have such a marvelous holiday in such a marvelous
place.

London was hateful at the moment; the heat-wave magnified all noise, and
Father objected to the piano ...  He wasn't too well, and this made
things difficult ...  She felt too exhausted in any case, after nursing
an invalid, housekeeping, and cooking, to enjoy playing the piano, far
less teaching it to children.. David carefully erased the words 'two
weeks."

But a holiday in Cornwall will cheer you up. I'll look after Father and
finish the rest of my reading.

Tell Father I have some weird tales for him. I have been collecting them
from one of the local chieftains, Captain Ma clean by name. Did you know
about the Ma cleans They are very proud, it seems. At the time of the
Flood they snubbed Noah and had a boat of their own.

I discovered some unusual Gaelic music, pent atonic and strangely sad.

Lots of songs about the sea, naturally. The sea dirges are only to be
sung by women, as if men weren't supposed to get melancholy about all
the drowned sailors. Good psychology this, however, considering the men
had to do the sailing. They are allowed the reiving songs, though; all
about the wine and women waiting for them on the mainland. (Can't
imagine what wine they drank in this part of the world, unless it was
something like a mead made from heather honey. Sounds hardly worth
reiving for. ) I'll try to get a copy of these songs for you on my way
south.

We called on Dr. MacLntyre some days ago on his island stronghold. He is
quite remarkable. And he was most kind.

Again David paused. Better not mention the Lorrimers at all.

Love to Father and yourself. Expect me when you see me. Trains are far
away from this wild region, and I'll probably miss at least one
connexion when I do reach a railway line. It takes almost as long to
reach London from here as if I were travelling from Munich. (There are
language difficulties too.

Yours,

He read the letter over carefully. If it gave the impression of rather
more fun and games than work that couldn't be helped. Damned if he was
going to start writing Margaret's kind of letters. If she enjoyed
writing letters with a neat pin-prick in every third sentence, then that
was her loss. He wondered, as he folded the stiff sheet of notepaper and
slipped it into one of the Lodge's excellent envelopes, just what she
would say if she were to open it and read, "The weather is putrid. The
boys are howling dervishes.

George is as good-natured as ever, but even that virtue can get on your
nerves when there is nothing much else to go with it. I get no real time
for my own work. I'll be glad when I get back to London's hot pavements
and can be my own master again. If it weren't for your holiday in
Cornwall I would not be here now scrabbling for some extra cash to pay
for it."

He smiled grimly, wrote the address"--Miss. Bosworth, 7 Cory's Walk,
Chiswick, London, W.4'--and then allowed himself to crash the stamp on
with his clenched fist.

His second letter was to Dr. MacLntyre, a kind of bread- and-butter
letter saying how much he had enjoyed the visit, and that he was sorry
the visit to Inchnamurren had been cancelled to-day. That part was
simple to write. But the next paragraph took more time: I promised to
bring your granddaughter a book today-- the new edition of Gerard Manley
Hopkins--but now I must send it to her, and I find that I haven't her
address. I wonder if you would be so kind as to give it to Captain Ma
clean when he takes this note across to you?

My thanks again for a memorable day. I hope I have the pleasure of
seeing you next year when you come south for that visit to Oxford ...
Yes, it was all right, he decided, as he balanced the envelope in his
hand.

The reference to Penelope was fairly negligible. And he had a copy of
that book, brought with him among the others he had packed in Oxford.

He left the letter to his sister on the hall table, where the outgoing
post was collected. But the letter to Dr. MacLntyre was carried upstairs
to his room. To-morrow morning he would take it down to Ma clean
cottage.

He slept badly, but he could always blame that on his cold.

Chapter Eight.

THE CRESCENT IS STORMED.

The Lorrimers' house in Edinburgh was solid and comfortable. It was one
of a row of three-storied houses in a quiet, crescent-shaped road, each
with its broad white steps, polished doorbell, name-plate, letter-box,
and large oriel windows set into thick grey stone. In front of each
house was a carriage step overlying the deep gutter at the edge of the
pavement. Across the quiet road was a narrow stretch of garden, well
tended and charming with flowering shrubs. The trees that grew there
added to the seclusion of the road, for the houses on the other side of
the garden were screened from view. There was no one in the garden, and
its gate was padlocked. There were no children playing, no people to be
seen. Only the rows of large windows looked at you.

David felt he was reviewing a line of spit-and-polish Guardsmen, and he
did not quite know whether he should tiptoe in reverence or make a run
for it.

But here he was, and there was the house. (He had walked past it once
already, halted at an imposing lamp-post, and then retraced his steps. )
The choice was made in any case. It had been made last night, when,
after a tedious journey by car and then by steamer and then by train
from Oban, he had arrived in Glasgow and had purposely failed to catch
the London express. He had spent a dull evening by himself in an unknown
city, where everything seemed to be closed on Sundays; and a noisy night
at a railway hotel until he could take a train on Monday morning to
Edinburgh.

His pace slowed down as he neared the Lorrimers' house once more.

What on earth had ever made him think of this idea, anyway? He should
have posted his letter to Penny instead--it was still in his pocket,
soiled and crumpled from five days' handling--or, if he had had to obey
the mad compulsion which had made him travel home by way of Edinburgh,
then he ought to have telephoned first from the station. But after he
had written the letter he had delayed posting it until it was too late.
And this morning when he arrived in the Edinburgh station he had avoided
the telephone-boxes. As if he were trying to postpone any attempt to get
in touch with Penny. As if he had stage-fright.

Hell, he thought, don't be a bloody fool. He turned to the house, ran up
the broad white steps, and pulled the bell before he could persuade
himself to walk back to the bus-stop. When he released the knob of the
bell he could hear its shrill tongue clattering away into the silent
house. He had pulled it too violently. Oh, hell, he thought again. Well,
either he would see her or he would not see her.

That was all, and it was everything. If he were to see her he would know
whether this strange self-tormenting was valid or not. If he didn't see
her--well, the thread was already so tenuous . a part of one afternoon
spent with her, that was all--if he didn't see her, then the thread
might snap altogether and he would be free again. He would be able to
laugh at the whole brief affair. A girl's face. A girl's way of talking.
How easily he had surrendered. Damn' fool, he told himself. But as he
waited for some one to answer the bell's clamour he was suddenly'
nervous, in case no one should be at home at all.

A maid, stiffly correct in a starched dress, white apron, white cap,
opened the door. Yes, Mrs. Lorrimer was at home. The maid glanced
quickly at his pin-striped grey flannel suit, the long-pointed collar
and striped tie, the brown suede shoes and soft felt hat. Would he come
this way?

He entered the polished hall, with its thick rugs and clean smell of
cedar oil. The large grandfather clock at the foot of the
white-enamelled, red-carpeted stairs chimed eleven o'clock, as if to
remind him that he had chosen an unusual hour for his visit. He entered
the drawing-room, a cool place of green and white with formalized roses
to be picked off curtains and chairs, and was left with the three faces
in the large portrait which hung over the mantelpiece for company. Three
girls, heads conventionally together, throats and shoulders bare, with
clouds of soft tulle caught carefully, well above breast-line, with pink
roses. The artist had not captured the right colour of her hair, David
thought with annoyance. Penny's hair was much less obvious than the
painter had made it appear; he had put in far too much of its red
lights.

Probably he fancied himself as another Titian.

He turned to face the door as he heard the sound of a light footstep.

"Mr. Bosworth," Mrs. Lorrimer said, and came forward to shake his hand,
'this is indeed a surprise."

He coloured slightly at her unobtrusive appraisal. He certainly would be
found gravely wanting if he didn't explain his visit adequately.

His excuse, which had seemed so natural and excellent, now appeared weak
in the extreme. His voice lost its assurance, as if he were apologizing
more for the excuse than for the actual visit. But actually there was no
reason for any worry.

Mrs. Lorrimer had her own particular problems: Monday was such a bad day
to offer luncheon. Cook wouldn't change the arrangements, either--not on
laundry day. And you couldn't give a man an egg and a salad, even if you
did not particularly like him. She began to listen to him, worrying now
because she had missed the thread of his explanation, something about
having a book for Penelope.

"I do hope I haven't disturbed you," he concluded.

"It is very rude of me to descend on you like this without warning, but
frankly I had no idea how long I should have in Edin- burgh between
trains."

"When does your train leave?"

"This afternoon. Rather late in the afternoon." He had a very charming
smile, Mrs. Lorrimer thought, with surprise. He went on, "It seemed very
dreary to spend the day here by myself. I don't know Edinburgh at all,
you see. I thought that your daughters might lunch with me, and show me
the Castle afterwards."

"I'm afraid Betty and Moira are both out. And Penelope has settled down
to do some painting in her room. At the moment she says she is very
behindhand with something or other." "I should be sorry to interrupt,"
he said. Careful now, careful he told himself. Gently does it.

Mrs. Lorrimer's sense of guilt at having missed so much of his first
conversation now resulted in sudden affability. After all, a stranger in
Edinburgh had to be welcomed decently. She eyed the thin book which he
had drawn out of his pocket and now held in his hand.

"I

shall tell Penelope you are here, and she can thank you herself." She
rose and went to the door.

"We have coffee at eleven in the morning.

You will stay and have some with us?" He had obviously never expected to
have luncheon here, she thought. That was a great relief. She left the
drawing-room door open, and he heard murmured instructions to a maid,
who then ran upstairs.

David walked over to the window which overlooked the back garden.

Front garden, he corrected himself. It was obvious from the care
expended on it that this was really the front of the house. As if it had
turned its back on the street to live its own life in contemplation of a
long, narrow stretch of grass and flower-beds and cherry-trees within
its own high walls. The city seemed remote.

Smoking chimneys and tram cars and buses and shops and crowds did not
exist.

But it was a different kind of peace from that which he had just left in
the Highlands. There it was peace with the feeling of a wild and savage
freedom.

Here it was sheltered, secure, possessive.

It was my house, my garden, my peace. His sense of intrusion deepened,
and he turned quickly away towards the door.

He heard footsteps on the staircase running quickly down, and then a
short halt in their rhythm followed by a thump as she landed neatly on
both feet in the hall. She had jumped the last four or five steps.

It was so out of pattern with the dignified house and its formal garden
that his depression left him. A broad smile spread over his face.

"What is it. Mother?" Penny was saying impatiently. And then she halted,
and her voice altered,

"David Bosworth!" She looked just as wonderful as he had remembered her.

"Hello." He tried to be casual. The result was that he forgot what he
had been going to say. And the longer the silence lasted the more
difficult it was to break. He dropped her hand as he heard Mrs. Lorrimer
running to the room, and he spoke then much too quickly.

"I brought you this book. I was passing through Edinburgh and had some
free time. I hope I am not being a nuisance."

"Oh, no."

"What about your work?"

"Oh, that's nothing."

Mrs. Lorrimer established control the minute she entered the room.

"Penelope, I never imagined you would come downstairs in that
disreputable smock. You know, Mr. Bosworth, she won't allow it to be
laundered."

"What are you working on?" he asked curiously.

"Oh," she said, for the third time. And then, half laughing, "A chest of
drawers."

Heavens, he thought, surely she isn't one of those art-and- crafters,
painting pretty flowers in between handles!

Mrs. Lorrimer's eyebrows had gone up as her daughter had spoken.

"Why don't you show Mr. Bosworth your work?" she suggested. Really, she
was thinking indignantly, how silly of Penelope. Mr. Bosworth might have
believed her.

"I don't think he would be interested," Penny said.

There was a pause, and as it lengthened David felt he had to say, "I

should like to see it very much." He was as embarrassed as Penny. He had
never been adept at simulating admiration: he would say inadequate
things, and she would be hurt.

Penny stood hesitating for a minute, and then, catching the slight nod
of command from her mother, who now was quite determined that Mr.
Bosworth should not leave with a wrong impression of her daughter's
talents, she suddenly moved towards the hall.

She led the way, without looking back, and David followed quickly.

The sooner this was over the better. She was wearing fine silk stockings
to-day, and the seams were straight, too, on an excellent pair of legs.
He admired them all the way up the two nights of stairs.

"Penelope insisted on changing her room to suit her own ideas," Mrs.
Lorrimer said, as they passed two sweetly pretty rooms belonging to
Moira and Betty.

There was the slight edge of amused criticism in her voice. Penny said
nothing, but her chin was set and determined. David wanted to smile. But
instead a look of surprise came into his eyes as he followed her into
her room. The walls were plain, unlike the flower-patterned wallpaper
which belonged to the other rooms, and they had been painted a strange
shade of clouded blue, almost grey. The carpet, also un patterned was
the colour of sand.

Long, straight curtains (no frills and flounces here) were striped in
white and coral-red. There were bookcases, open and low, against one
wall, and above them a long, deep band of dark green felt over cork had
been fixed to the wall. On this were pinned reproductions of pictures
cut out of art magazines.

"Good idea," he said involuntarily. This was the kind of thing he would
like to have in his room at Oxford. He looked at the pictures.

They varied in emotion from Rem- brandt's self-portrait through Ingres
to Gauguin and the Douanier Rousseau. There was also a magnificent
photograph of the detail on the main door to Chartres Cathedral; a
reproduction of Durer's Praying Hands; some British Museum postcards of
Attic vases. And there was an excellent camera study, cut out of last
month's Vanity Fair, of a girl's body stretched, with accent on long,
tight thighs and firm, high breasts, against a dark background.

"Here is Penelope's workroom," Mrs. Lorrimer said quickly. I told her
yesterday that I didn't like that thing, she thought angrily. She opened
the door which led into Penelope's small studio.

As David turned away from the pictures to follow politely he glanced at
Penny. She was watching him anxiously, as if she were afraid that he
might laugh, as if that were the normal reaction she had come to expect.
He said, most honestly,

"I like this room." Somehow he felt that in these last two minutes he
had known her for two years.

"It is so very small, of course," Mrs. Lorrimer said of the work-room.

It was very small, but it also looked very adequate. There was an easel,
a battered table with sketches and pieces of charcoal and tubes of paint
and a jar holding brushes, a high stool, a small electric fire, and some
canvases standing on the floor with their face to the whitewashed wall.

"So you paint," he said, half to himself. Chest of drawers, he
remembered, and smiled. Penny's eyes were laughing.

"Show Mr. Bosworth your drawings, Penelope, and then we shall go down
for coffee," Mrs. Lorrimer said.

Penny hesitated. He walked over to the half-finished canvas on the
easel.

It was an Impressionist study of the west shore of Inchnamurren. By the
black rock in the foreground two figures were roughly blocked in, but so
far only the sky and the sea had been painted.

"Where are the seals?" David asked.

"At least you recognized it," she said delightedly.

"Mother, there you are! You always say that no one can recognize
anything I try to paint. I am doing this as a kind of bread and-butter
letter to Grandfather. Do you think he will like it?" "I like it," David
said, and he was being honest. He was a little confused.

The sea study was not at all bad. In fact, it was damned good.
Surprising.

It wasn't just the pretty little picture that you might expect from a
girl who liked to paint. He took a closer step to look at the two
figures. One was certainly a girl. The other figure might be, could be .
He looked quickly at Penny, but she was now much engrossed in a
still-life which she was about to show him.

"Imitation van Gogh, I know," she said, and smiled. He had the grace to
look embarrassed. He wasn't accustomed to having his thoughts so quickly
interpreted.

"And roofs," she said, showing him another canvas.

"I do a lot of these. In a way they are like a sea. A petrified sea."

"Now, Penelope, get rid of that dreadful smock, and I'll take Mr.
Bosworth downstairs. I am sure the coffee will be cold if we wait any
longer."

David and Penny exchanged glances.

"That's all, anyway," she said. She seemed to be urging him to go, as if
she did not want her mother to be annoyed. He reached quickly for the
door-handle to let Mrs. Lorrimer pass through.

"I always think this room is so bare, so masculine," Mrs. Lorrimer said,
walking quickly through Penelope's bedroom.

David thought it wise not to contradict, even politely. The colours were
not those any man would have dared to use together. The amazing thing
was that they made a quiet room and gave it a feeling of space.

It would be pleasant to live in a room like that.

"Your house is charming," he said to Mrs. Lorrimer, as they went
downstairs, and his remark won a real smile. It also involved a quick
visit to a dark, book-lined room, all very leather-and-mahogany, with
silver cups on the high carved mantelpiece.

"This is my husband's study," Mrs. Lorrimer said.

"Most impressive," he said, and nodded to the silver cups.

Tor tennis," Mrs. Lorrimer said.

"He used to win everything. He hasn't much time now, of course."

"Of course."

In the drawing-room the coffee-tray was waiting on a low table in front
of the couch. As Mrs. Lorrimer poured coffee and hot milk in equal
proportions into the cups she went on talking about her husband.

"He enjoys the tennis at North Berwick, you know. We have gone there
every August for years. If you had arrived here next week-end I am
afraid you would have found a closed house."

David, whose chief worry during the last week had been that he might not
discover Penny's address before the Lorrimers left for North Berwick,
said, "Then I should have been a very lost stranger in Edinburgh."

"I should have thought you would have stayed on for the Twelfth," Mrs.
Lorrimer said.

"You are missing the chief excitement in the Highlands, you know."

Perhaps she was wishing that he had stayed at the Lodge for the Twelfth.

David felt some of the concealed regret in her voice, accepted a
shortbread biscuit, and said quickly, "I wonder if you and your daughter
would lunch with me today?" Thank Heaven he had his ticket for London
already in his pocket, but he wondered if his remaining thirty shillings
would be adequate. Less than thirty bob now: haircut and shave, suitcase
in the left-luggage place, tips, bus fare out to the Crescent. He made
the calculation quickly. He set down the fine cup on the silver tray,
almost letting it fall in relief as he heard her refuse.

Politely, sweetly, but definitely. She was already engaged for luncheon.

She was so sorry.

"I am too," he said, now beginning to worry whether Penny was already
booked up in this same party or not. Stupidly he had not thought of that
before.

He had been so damned sure that she would be free. He looked so dejected
that Mrs. Lorrimer was suddenly friendly. Perhaps, too, her little
subterfuge troubled her. Anyway, she began to talk very pleasantly about
Edinburgh.

Then Penny appeared at last. Mrs. Lorrimer's quick glance | took in her
daughter's newest suit, which normally was worn, in the first six months
of its existence, only for the most special occasions. That wasn't all,
either.

Penelope was wearing her smartest high-heeled shoes, and that expensive
blouse which had been bought only last week.

"Well!" Mrs. Lorrimer said.

"We wondered what was keeping you." David said, "Are you going out to
lunch too?"

"Why, no," Penny said, in surprise. She looked at her mother's startled
face.

"Then I hope you'll have it with me. You won't object, will you, Mrs.
Lorrimer?"

Mrs. Lorrimer found she was helpless in face of the direct attack. If he
had said, "May she?" Mrs. Lorrimer could have said, "I'm sorry, but
Penelope can't manage that to-day. Perhaps on your next visit." But now
she would seem rude if she said, "Yes." And she had no real reason for
objecting. Except there was just the little feeling that things were
moving much too quickly out of her control.

She looked at her daughter's happy smile and at the young man's face as
he waited for her reply.

"Of course not," she said.

Penny said quickly, "I'll get my hat."

"What about your work? I thought you did not want to be disturbed
to-day?" Mrs. Lorrimer asked.

"Oh, that's all right. Mother. I wasn't making much headway really.

To-morrow will do."

"To-morrow----" Mrs. Lorrimer began, but Penelope was already half-way
up the staircase.

David Bosworth rose.

"You've been awfully kind, Mrs. Lorrimer. Thank you for taking pity on
the stranger within your gates."

Mrs. Lorrimer smiled faintly. There wasn't anything else she could have
done, she thought worriedly. Only she did not wish that this young man
wasn't quite such a stranger. All she knew was that he was poor, clever
(this she had learned from questioning her father), and thoroughly
determined. Quite admirable qualities, no doubt, if you hadn't a most
marriageable daughter.

She wondered if there was still time to say that her engagement for
luncheon did not matter, and that she would be delighted to accept his
invitation.

But Penelope came downstairs at that moment.

She was wearing that new hat, with the rakish tilt, which she had
insisted on buying. And her smartest handbag, her best gloves. And David
Bosworth was saying that he hoped Mrs. Lorrimer would have lunch with
him and Mr. Chaundler on her next visit to Oxford. And somehow Mrs.
Lorrimer found herself walking into the hall with them and saying
good-bye with a smile.

She stood for a moment at the open door, watched them almost run down
the white steps and then start walking in the direction of the bus-stop.
They didn't look back. They were already talking as if they had
forgotten all about her. And they looked so exactly right together,
Penelope just a head shorter than the man and taking three steps to two
of his, Bosworth with his straight shoulders half turned towards the
girl as he talked, that Mrs. Lorrimer found herself thinking for a
moment how pleasant it was to be young and walk so confidently.

She closed the door, deciding that this wretched morning was all
Penelope's fault. Her father would have to talk seriously to her. If she
behaved with such indiscretion in London goodness knew what would happen
to her.

Mrs. Lorrimer, returning to the drawing-room, stared at her three
daughters over the mantelpiece. If only they were boys, she thought, if
only they could take care of themselves, then she would not have to
behave like some old tyrant. She looked at their portrait gloomily, as a
fruiterer might look at a window-display of highly expensive, highly,
perishable peaches.

Chapter Nine.

AND THE CASTLE IS TAKEN.

David took a deep breath of relief when they reached the pavement and he
still found Penny walking along beside him. Until the very last moment
he hadn't been quite sure that he was going to manage it. He felt as if
he had scaled the rocks of Edinburgh Castle itself and flouted every
gaoler.

"Now what do you want to see first of all?" Penny asked.

"Nothing.

Everything. It doesn't matter," he answered. You, his eyes said. She
pretended to laugh, but the colour in her cheeks told him that she knew
quite well what he wanted to see. He became conscious that he was
hurrying her along the Crescent with obvious haste, and slackened his
pace.

"Sorry," he said.

"I was making quite sure that your mother would have no afterthoughts,
and leave me walking along this crescent by myself. Tell me, does every
man who wants to take you out find it as difficult as I did?" The idea,
applied to others, seemed rather an attractive one.

"Well, you are sort of unexpected, aren't you? I mean, Mother knows who
the others are. She doesn't know you. That was the main trouble, I
think."

"And what troubles do the others have to face?" He made a good pretence
of joking about it, but he was wondering, with a sudden sharp annoyance,
just how many men made the attempt. Looking at Penny, he knew there must
be plenty of them, like bees round honey.

"Actually you avoided the main one."

And what's that?"

"You didn't 'phone. You called at our house."

"Is there a ban against 'phoning?"

"Not exactly. But there's a kind of opposition ..." She paused in
embarrassment: he must be finding her very amusing, and in the wrong
way.

"It really is much better to call at our house."

"That makes us respectable?"

"It helps."

He smiled broadly.

"Well, I very nearly wasn't respectable."

"We've passed the bus-stop," she said quickly.

"Shall we go back?"

"No, let's walk. Do you mind. Penny?" They couldn't talk on a bus, and
it was a pity to waste any of the few hours he could have with her.
Besides, walking helped talking.

"I'd love to walk, David."

They were both conscious of the strange sound of their first names.

"Good," David said, with enthusiasm.

"Let's head for the Castle.

That's the place to see, isn't it? We can find a spot to admire the
view, and you can point out all attractions round about."

"You won't see much of Edinburgh that way, I'm afraid."

"I'll buy a guide-book at the station and do some memorizing on the
train.

Then I'll be able to give a good account of I

what I didn't see to-day, if you insist. You look startled. ': What's
wrong?"

"Nothing." She tried to look natural. And then she laughed suddenly and
said, "Do you always behave like this?"

He didn't answer that. He had never behaved like this before, he
thought, as he took her arm to guide her across a street. He didn't let
go either until another fifty yards had been covered and two elderly
ladies, in knitted suits, straight- set hats, and chamois gloves, smiled
and bowed to a most confused Penny.

David lifted his hat with great politeness.

"Sorry, that was my fault," he said.

"I didn't quite like the sudden gleam of interest in their eyes. Will it
cause any trouble?"

"It will be all right," Penny said, looking at him curiously.

"They are rather sweet old ladies--not like some we might have met." She
gave him the warmest smile that had yet come his way.

After that David found himself forcing a passage for her through the
increasingly crowded pavements. He felt the impulse to punch every man
between the eyes who looked a ; moment longer than necessary at the girl
walking beside him. I I'm sunk, he suddenly thought, as he made some
small remark and waited to see the answering smile on her face: I'm
sunk, completely and absolutely, and I don't care if I am. He began
talking as amusingly as he could. He might groan afterwards at this
display of sheer exhibitionism, but each smile and laugh and comment won
now was well worth it. And when they had at last passed through Princes
Street, broad, welcoming in the morning sunshine, with its fashionable
shops along one side and its formal gardens on the other, and then
entered a steep street which looked as if it might lead them towards the
Castle, he had his reward.

"Why, here we are!" Penny said, with considerable surprise. She looked
at her shoes, now lightly coated with fine white dust.

"It usually takes an hour to reach the Castle from our house. At least
an hour if you are walking." ' David glanced at his wrist-watch. They
had been walking for more than an hour.

"What about some food first? Is there a restaurant near here? I expect
we passed several decent places in Princes Street. You should have told
me, you know. I'm a stranger here."

Penny smiled and shook her head. Decent restaurants were expensive.

"There's bound to be a restaurant near here," she said, 'if you don't
mind something simple."

David wondered if he were hearing correctly.

"Isn't there some place you'd like especially for lunch?" All the girls
he had ever met before chose the best restaurant as a matter of course.

Penny shook her head again, and felt some surprise herself. She had
thought, when she had dressed so carefully, that she would make a very
smart appearance at one of the well- known places. (Who is the girl with
that distinguished man? No doubt one of these foreigners who are now
visiting the city. An American? No, probably Parisian--you can always
tell by the hat.

But now it didn't matter.

Anywhere at all seemed marvelous, wonderful. He is the most
extraordinary man I've ever met, she thought, as she looked up at him.

"I don't suppose you have ever missed a meal in your life?" he said,
with a strange little smile.

"You make me sound greedy. But actually I don't believe I ever have.

Have you?"

"Sometimes. When I'm busy and can't be bothered."

"Frankly I am not very hungry now. Perhaps we shouldn't bother. We can
have something to eat later on." "Good Lord, no!" he said vehemently,
and flushed. God, did she think he had no money at all? And that remark
of his about missing meals--what a stupid kind of thing to let slip! He
had passed so many well-fed, healthy faces in Edin- burgh streets that
he had begun to think of it as a city of good restaurants, if only he
knew where to look for them. One was always inefficient about
restaurants in strange places: in Oxford or London he would have known
where to take her to eat.

Hell, he thought angrily, and looked about him in desperation. He
grabbed her arm suddenly and led her towards a sign.

"This looks a restaurant of sorts. Seems all right. Is it?"

"Yes," she said. But she was relieved that there was no one in the
street who could recognize her as they entered its door, for her mother
would have been horrified. A tavern would have been Mrs. Lorrimer's name
for it. But there were white tablecloths and the appetizing smell of
roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, as well as the tobacco smoke and the
clusters of bowler hats on the racks which stood beside each row of
tables.

"Are you sure it is all right?" David repeated. This seemed a restaurant
mostly for men. Probably the food would be excellent.

"Of course," she said. Why, she thought, with some disappointment, it
really looks very respectable!

David was saying, "We might get some decent food here. What chases away
my appetite is the tearoom."

Penny seemed intent on drawing off her gloves. She had always thought
tea-rooms, especially the ones in Princes Street, rather pleasant places
with excellent cakes. But obviously they weren't held in such high
regard in Oxford. She felt suddenly very naive about her ideas on food.

David noticed her sudden shyness.

"Are you sure you don't mind this place?" Good Lord, he thought, I am
becoming more Edinburgh than Edinburgh, worrying about what is done or
not done. Or perhaps he was being unfair to Edin- burgh judging it by
Mrs. Lorrimer.

"Do you like Edinburgh?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes," Penny said, in surprise, 'don't you?" And then she smiled.

"I like its Princes Street," he said, 'but I don't know anything about
its people. Except you and your mother, and you seem direct opposites."

"Mother was born and brought up in England. She only came to Edinburgh
when she married Father." "Oh," he said. He looked at Penny, and they
both laughed, and then she became absorbed in studying the menu.

"If you really don't care for this place," he began hesitatingly, and
then stopped. Mrs. Lorrimer's influence was long- lasting, it seemed.

He was noticing, for instance, that the tablecloth, although white, was
not well laundered, and that the menu was thumb-marked. Penny must have
noticed these things at once. Damn, he thought; I've bungled things
badly: I must look damned inadequate. He scowled savagely in the
direction of an interested table.

"And who are these young men, anyway?" he asked suddenly. He was
delighted when he saw his return stare had routed successfully the
watching eyes. He began to feel more efficient again. Well, they asked
for it, he thought: bloody rude of them to stare at Penny like that.

"Medical students," Penny said.

David glanced at her sharply.

"Do you know them?"

Penny shook her head. She had liked the quickness in his voice somehow.

"You can always tell them. It's their clinical interest."

David relaxed, and a smile spread over his face as he ordered lunch.

By a skilful process of suggestion and elimination he managed to make
her decide in half the usual time she needed to cope with a menu.

Well, she thought, as the full-bosomed, thick-wasted waitress in drab
black retired with the completed order, well, it is rather nice to have
some one to make up your mind for you-- especially if he decides on the
things you really wanted to have, anyway. She wondered if he always knew
what he wanted so very quickly; and thank goodness the dye in her new
suede gloves was fast and her hands were not streaked with blue as she
had feared. And did that medical student with the red hair know her, for
he looked as if he did recognize her--students had a way of knowing you
without your ever having met them--and was he perhaps a friend of any of
Moira's friends? And then she suddenly thought, I don't care even if all
the family find out; I don't care if I get into the most awful row.
This, she decided, as she listened to David's voice and watched the
smile in his eyes, this is fun. She laughed suddenly.

"A good joke?" he said.

"I'm feeling rather good," she said. She told herself she shouldn't have
admitted that, but her tongue had outwitted her.

"Are you?" He looked pleased. He said quietly, "So am I. Nice feeling,
isn't it?" Their eyes met and held in the same way they had met and held
in Mrs. McDonald's cottage. And the effect was still the same. Penny
took fright, retreating into words: David was silent, watching her as
she talked. She felt suddenly that he knew why she was talking like
this, and she fell silent too.

"And what happened then?" he asked. He must have been listening after
all.

"Nothing very much. I'm afraid I'm boring you."

He shook his head slowly.

The waitress brought the food, and the intrusion brought them back to
earth.

Besides, the roast beef was tender and properly underdone, the roasted
potatoes were crisp and hot, the vegetables were an appetizing green and
did not taste of baking-soda, and they were both hungry.

David congratulated himself on his choice of restaurant. It could cook.
As he drank the excellent ale which he had ordered--Penny would have
nothing to drink--he said, "Thank heavens you are a girl who can eat."

She looked up quickly, horrified.

"No, please don't," he said.

"That was a compliment I was trying to pay you. There is nothing sillier
than the girl who picks daintily and leaves most of the food on her
plate.

She probably thinks she is being aesthetic or something, although how
anyone can be ssthetic when they don't appreciate an art like good
cooking I can't imagine.

Actually she always reminds me strongly of the princess in The Thousand
and One Nights. The one who ate rice with a bodkin. Only rice, grain by
grain; everything else refused. Remember her?"

Penny, whose knowledge of The Thousand and One Nights had been limited
to one volume of carefully selected passages, to Rimsky-Korsakov's
music, and to the bowdlerized version of the Christmas pantomime,
wrinkled her brow thoughtfully.

"I don't know it," she admitted.

"I

thought I knew The Arabian Nights pretty well, but I don't know that
story.

How did it end?"

"Well, roughly--without Scheherazade's interruptions--she ate the grains
of rice by day, drugged her husband's coffee in the evening, and went
out by night with her friend, the ghoul, totear a few graves apart.
Nice clean fun, don't you think?"

Penny thought over that, and then the full implication dawned on her.

She laughed and pushed back her empty plate.

"I was only trying to show you that I was paying you a compliment when I
said I was glad you liked good food. But I suppose I haven't
Scheherazade's charm as a teller of tales." "Actually," Penny said, with
mock seriousness, 'you should not mention ghouls or graves in Edinburgh.
Burke and | Hare  ...

Remember them?"

"Why, of course, they worked here ...  Good old subconscious: it keeps
on going all the time, doesn't it?" He glanced over at the party of
medical students, and caught the red-haired man watching Penny again.

"Now I know what to say to your medical friend if he doesn't stop
looking over in this direction."

"What?" she asked, with dawning horror. But she did not need an answer.

David's sudden outburst of laughter was enough. It made every one in the
room turn their heads sharply to look at them for a moment; and
strangers' faces, as they picked up their own conversations again, still
held something of the smile which had been brought to their lips quite
involuntarily.

"I believe you would!" Penny said. She imitated his voice: "Doing much
body-snatching these days, Dr. Redhead?"

After a while, when she could talk without starting to laugh all over
again, she said,

"Actually we are being rather cruel. He is probably a most worthy young
man."

With a body-snatching eye, David thought.

"I'm sorry," he said, but he did not look in the least. repentant.

"What other stories did Scheherazade tell?"

"One thousand and one nights of them." He smiled, thinking of their
variety.

"And the king who listened never got bored? She must have been very
beautiful as well as having a lovely voice. But I suppose that after a
thousand and one nights she had become a habit."

"Probably," David agreed. And a very pleasant one. The three sons which
she produced meanwhile must have been a help too.

"She certainly kept her head, which was more than the King's previous
wives had been able to do."

"I don't believe she was afraid of death. She told the stories well
because she wanted totell them. Perhaps she loved the king, and wanted
to make him happy."

"Perhaps."

"You think I am being rather silly, don't you?"

David's smile disappeared.

"Good Lord, no! I'm interested. Do you really believe she was in love?"

"Why else would she bother? If you had totell a different story every
night for almost three years to some one you did not love, you would
probably give up after three months and petition to be beheaded.
Wouldn't you?"

David was smiling again.

"Probably."

"You are as cautious as a Scotsman. I never heard such a collection of "
probablies" and " perhapses."

"All right, I'll abandon caution. When can I see you again? Do you ever
visit London?"

She pretended to be very busy pouring a second cup of coffee for him, no
cream, three lumps of sugar.

David pressed his question. No chance of arranging a holiday there?"

If not, then I'll just have to think up some old excuse to get to
Edinburgh for Christmas. A complicated business. Still, he would arrange
it somehow.

If he won that essay prize on the failure of democracy in Greece there
would be enough money to cover expenses.

She shook her head, and then she relented: he was looking quite
disappointed enough.

"I am coming to live in London." she said very quietly.

What?"

"I'm going to the Slade School of Art. At the end of September."

He pushed himself back from the table, wrinkling the tablecloth,
spilling the coffee.

"Well," he said, and then lowered his voice to a more normal tone;
'well, that's grand." He studied her face for a few moments.

"You know, you can be a devil, too. Why didn't you tell me?" "You might
not have wanted to see me again," she said gently.

Before he had recovered his breath to say anything to that, the
waitress, with one eye on the clock and the other on an emptying room,
came over and frowned at the tablecloth. Some people didn't know when to
stop talking or drinking cold coffee.

"Imagine them coming to a howf like this, anyway! With clothes and a
figure like that I'd let myself be seen, she thought. The man was
looking annoyed--did he just want to sit there talking all afternoon,
and me with my feet fit to burst? But he tipped well, and that was
something unexpected.

Usually the students--and he looked like one left threepence under the
plate.

Hard-up they were, although they did have an extra glass of beer often
enough. Funny kind of hard-up ness that.

That was men for you: suit themselves, me first, me me all the time.

"Thank you, sir." She slipped the tip into the pocket under her apron,
and stood there for a minute to watch them leave. Still talking their
heads off.

And now he had his hand under her arm and was guiding her carefully
between the empty tables. Well, she thought grudgingly, as she fingered
the tip in her pocket, you're only young once. And she wished them luck
in her bitter, tired way, as she pulled off the stained tablecloth and
mopped up the pool of coffee.

Edinburgh Castle looked coldly down on the last visitors still
disturbing its peace. A poor lot, who paid money and stared. Once upon a
time the price of admission had been a good sword arm, a hot-blooded
battle-cry.

The group of international students was exhausted in everything, even in
its good will. Tea had been suggested by Moira Lorrimer, and she was now
shepherding her straggling guests towards the Castle gates.

Some of the thirstier ones had already started down the twisting cobbled
paths, no doubt hoping to find a place where something more to their
taste than tea might be found. Well, she had done her best: she had
shown them practically everything they should see, and that wasn't a bad
day's work.

Especially when Joan Taylor, who was supposed to be helping to guide the
party around Edinburgh, had done nothing but enjoy herself with the
Americans.

"We shall be late," Moira said to the last small group of lingerers and
hoped they would take the hint.

"Superb!" a French student cried, and swept out her arm to the gardens
which lay down in the valley between the Castle's precipice and Princes
Street.

Her sense of drama did not seem to irritate the American who was beside
her--as he had been for most of the day.

"On the Rhine we have many old and beautiful castles. Also beautiful
rivers." The German was still informative.

"Have you?" Moira answered coldly, for the twentieth time. She was
becoming tired of hidden comparisons. What was more, after six hours of
listening to foreigners she found that she herself had started to speak
with their intonations. She had caught herself only ten minutes ago,
shrugging her shoulders and saying, "But yes!" to a Frenchman.

And after two hours of the Germans, who seemed to have adopted her, for
they kept coming over to ask questions or make statements, she was
saying

"So!" as if it were "Zo!" and, alarmingly, "Please?" With the Italian
she had found her eyes opening very wide, and her hands fluttering
vaguely in the air. Joan Taylor meanwhile had been having no
difficulties at all.

Now the very handsome Italian, who had more often than was truly
necessary brushed against her arm--and twice, it had to be admitted,
against her hips--was beside her once more. She flinched instinctively,
and held her elbows out stiffly, as he walked much too near her, so that
she found herself moving forward at a tangent until she was practically
against the wall.

"I am sorry," he said, with his deep, rich smile, as if he had just
noticed that she was practically off the path again. "So very sorry."

"Yes, yes," she answered, but still kept her elbows in a defensive
position.

He had magnificent eyes, and he used them well, almost as well as his
hands.

"I have a riddle," he was saying, dropping his voice to a friendly
murmur.

"But what?" Stop talking that way, she told herself angrily. "What is
it?" she asked quickly.

"Are the hearts of Scottish girls as hard as the rock on which they
placed their castle?"

Moira looked wildly around for help. But, for once, the German had left
her, the Americans had walked on with Joan Taylor and the French girl,
and the Chinese scholar had retired into contemplation of the colour
qualities of the smoke which hung over the distant rooftops.

She said weakly, "Perhaps they are."

"No, no, no. Impossible!" He halted suddenly and grasped her arm.

"Look, see! There are sensible people here. There is a girl with a heart
that sings, and a young man who is allowed to listen."

Moira looked, in spite of herself, towards the couple he had pointed
out.

They were standing at the rampart, leaning forward and resting their
elbows on it. They were standing very near each other, for one thing.
For another, the man was not even pretending to look at the city
stretching out below them. He was watching the girl's face.

"Most touching," Moira said very coldly. And then she stared.

"Are you ill?" the Italian asked anxiously.

"No." She made the effort of giving him a reassuring smile, which he
interpreted m all the wrong way. She said, "We are very late. We must
hurry."

"Yes?" the Italian asked hopefully, as he steadied her by || the arm
once or twice and she didn't even notice. But it turned out that they
were only late for tea, and his charming

S3.

blonde iceberg was surrounded once more by the phalanx of tedeschi, who
were still discussing the view, the Italian wondered, was a view without
a pretty girl to share it sympathetically ?

Moira found her conversational powers more strained than ever at the
tea-table. Her feet felt like burning lead, and her mind kept asking
questions. The only answers it found didn't soothe her. Yes, that had
been David Bosworth with Penny. And in full view of the whole city, as
it were.

Just wait until I get home, Moira thought angrily, and her annoyance
turned to outraged virtue. She ate one of her favourite cream-filled
chocolate eclairs with as much pleasure as if it had been made of
linoleum.

Chapter Ten.

THE END IS ALWAYS GOODBYE.

"Time to leave," David said. And then he looked at Penny and added, "Of
course, I could easily miss this train. Then you might have dinner with
me.

Would you?" "I couldn't," Penny said slowly.

"I promised that I would be home for dinner."

"I suppose it would be tactless to 'phone up and say you weren't
coming." He hadn't asked it as a question, but he was watching her face
for a reply.

"All right, then," he said.

"Time, gentlemen, time."

They began walking very slowly down the steep Castle road.

"I'll come home with you first," David said.

"I'll find a taxi."

"I don't think so, David. Not here. And we haven't very- much time left,
have we?" She turned back the cuff of his jacket and glanced at his
watch, and then she shook her head. She smiled up at him this time, and
said,

"Besides, I travel about Edinburgh every day by myself. I am not quite
such a wilting lily as all that!" Then, as he didn't join in her laugh,
didn't smile, didn't say anything, but just stood still looking at her,
she said quickly, anxiously, "What's wrong, David?"

"Nothing," he said then, 'nothing." She likes me, he thought; she really
likes me. She wouldn't have done that if she hadn't liked me. Damned
fool, he told himself, how do you know she wouldn't? You only want to
believe that; you don't know a damned thing about any of her gestures,
how much or how little they mean.

"Penny," he said suddenly, and then stopped himself in time. Penny, will
you write to me, he had been going to say. Better not ask it sounded
pretty silly, anyway. Better write to her, and then see if she answered
his letter.

"Yes?"

"It is Penny, isn't it? Not Penelope? Why?" "I don't like Penelope," she
said.

"I mean, I like it as a name, but I don't like it being attached to me.

People make jokes about it, you see: they make it rhyme with antelope,
or they think up funny things to say about it. I wish they wouldn't.
They ruin names, don't they?"

"They do their best. I've often thought that Dr. Johnson was wrong: puns
aren't the lowest form of wit. Making jokes on names is quite the
easiest and silliest way to raise a laugh."

"We should all be given numbers to identify us until we reach the age of
eighteen. Then we could choose the name we really wanted. It is pretty
awful at times what parents will think up for the christening."

"Probably they are thoroughly desperate and bewildered by that time,"
David suggested.

"Anyway" he looked at her with a smile as he paused 'anyway. Penny it
is."

She smiled. And then she said, in surprise, "Look, we are walking in the
wrong direction! The station is up to our left."

"Is it?"

She wasn't quite sure if he had been trying to lose that train after
all.

She coloured, and looked quickly away.

"I expect your mother will hold it against me if I don't take you home
safely," he tried. I'd even risk the horrors of a family dinner if I
could see her for four more hours, he thought.

"Mother won't know. She is at the clinic this afternoon, weighing other
people's babies and telling them how to feed them."

"Is your mother a doctor?" he asked, with amazement.

"No. It's voluntary work. Mother and some of her friends have been doing
that for years."

Lady Bountiful, David thought. I might have guessed that. Still, Mrs.
Lorrimer deserved some credit for the will to make an effort: there were
those who were rich and never even thought of the poor at all.

"You aren't very impressed," Penny said, watching his face carefully.

"Don't you like good works?"

"They are useful in an emergency. And as far as they go." David said
carefully.

"But volunteers can be----" *I know," he said.

"They have hearts of gold, and they give up their time, and what would
we do without them? And it doesn't matter that the birth-rate is low
where it should be high, and high where it should be low, or that so
many people should be stunted physically and mentally. You would think
it would be cheaper in the long run for a state to spend money on
professional people to take over everything to do with health. Besides,
the volunteer basis doesn't reach far enough. If we depend on people who
volunteer to help, then only some of those who need help will volunteer
to ask for it. But if it is on a professional basis, then people learn
to be businesslike about it, and they'll ask for help knowing it is
legally theirs and not a matter of charity."

"But----" Penny began again. She looked at the strange bitterness in his
face, and she felt suddenly bewildered and unhappy.

He shook his head.

"No," he said more gently, 'let's not begin anything we can't finish.
Penny.

I'll argue with you, if you'd like that, when you come to visit me at
Oxford. You will come, won't you?

We'll have lunch at the George, and then we shall walk out to the Trout
for tea. Will you come?"

"I'd love to," Penny said. It did sound wonderful, although she wondered
what on earth the George and the Trout could be.

"That's settled, then." He sounded pleased. He was, indeed, relieved: he
had been worrying how to phrase that invitation for the last fifteen
minutes, and for the last fifteen seconds before she had answered he had
been afraid of a polite little reply promising nothing.

Then something began to happen to their conversation. They were
practically silent by the time they reached the station. They halted at
its entrance, Penny pretending to be absorbed in the busy street, David
studying the pavement at their feet. He was thinking with some
disappointment that this might be as far as the well-brought-up girl
could go, and he had better not break any more taboos by suggesting that
she should come into the station and see him off. She was waiting for
him to say, in that easy way of his, "Why are we standing here?" But he
didn't suggest that she should come into the station, and he seemed
quite immovable. His silence made him suddenly appear remote. He is
half-way to London already, she thought, and in London we shall probably
meet again as strangers.

Probably, too, she would never see either this George or the Trout,
whatever they were. That was another world--his world. He had come into
hers for a day, because he had been passing by, and because it had
pleased him. For a day. She watched the hurrying people on the street,
noticing neither their faces nor their clothes. She felt miserable.

This is the anticlimax, David thought. Good-byes were always depressing
affairs. You said either too much or too little. And afterwards you
thought of all the things you should have said, which would have been
just right, neither too much nor too little.

He roused himself to say very quickly, "Well, thank you, Penny. Tell
your mother that I think. Edinburgh is a lovely, lovely place."
"Good-bye," she said. Well, here it was ...  First you said good-bye,
and then perhaps good-bye again, and you kept using the same phrases as
you held out your hand.

"Good-bye." He took her hand.

"I hope I wasn't a nuisance."

"Oh, no!" She looked up at him.

"I've had a marvelous day." She said it as if she meant it, he hoped. He
still held her hand. Damned if I don't kiss her in front of the whole
ruddy town, he thought. But then, at that moment, a stranger's shoulder
rubbed him, and a stranger's voice said, "Sorry!" and then, "Good
afternoon. Miss. Lorrimer!"

David dropped Penny's hand, raised his hat, smiled and said, "Well .

"Good-bye, David."

"Good-bye, Penny."

She gave him one of her brightest smiles, and then turned to walk
quickly away. He watched her. The worst thing about saying good-bye, he
decided, was this feeling of uncertanty. Would he ever see her again?
For that depended on her too.

The man who had greeted her was waiting at the corner. ostensibly for
the traffic to slacken pace. Then he looked round and saw Penny (as
David knew damned well he would), and changed his mind about crossing
the road. He was accompanying her towards Princes Street instead.

David lost sight of them in the crowd. He swore under his breath and
went into the station.

He bought a newspaper to read in the train, and disagreed savagely with
the leader and every article in it.

Then he sat in the gathering dusk and watched the fields flow past his
window, and wondered gloomily just what had happened to him. By the time
he had reached York he wasn't even bothering to wonder. He was trying to
balance a sheet of paper on a book and make his writing legible. This
letter was going to be posted, he told himself grimly.

Chapter Eleven.

THOUGHTS AT MIDNIGHT.

There was an air of distraction about the Lorrimer household that
evening.

Betty had come home from visiting her friend, bringing a sore throat and
headache. Mrs. Lorrimer, already feeling rather sorry for herself after
a particularly trying afternoon at the clinic, retired to her own room
with a tray and a novel. Moira had 'phoned to say that there was some
international dinner which she must attend; she would be home by ten
o'clock probably.

Charles Lorrimer, worried by Betty, annoyed by Moira, upset by the empty
dinner-table, finished the sweet as quickly as possible, refused
dessert, and, when Penny poured coffee for him in the drawing-room,
found an excuse to go to his study. Penny watched her father march with
his long, heavy stride across the hall. He was a tall man,
broad-shouldered and erect, so that his six feet seemed taller still. He
knew that, and never slouched. Each sign of age distressed him the
spectacles which he now must have for reading, the careful diet which he
was supposed to follow for stomach ulcers. How awful to get old. Penny
thought, but she was pitying her father and not herself: when you are
nineteen it is difficult to imagine that old age can happen to you.
Somehow you believe that one day you will at last reach the nice
satisfactory age of twenty-five, and that you will stay that way always.

Penny felt pity for a full minute. And then she picked up the book which
David had given her. He had written her name on the fly-leaf.

Just her name. That was all. I like his handwriting, she thought. She
looked at it critically, holding the book out at arm's length, her head
to one side as her eyes studied it for a moment. Handwriting was so
often disappointing: it didn't match the person who wrote it, or, at
least, you hadn't thought this was the way they would write.

She carried David's book upstairs to her room. The house was at rest.

She listened to its silence for a moment at her door, and then she went
into her bedroom with a feeling of contentment and satisfaction.

She had peace to think, peace to remember. She would take a long time in
getting ready for bed, and she would think and remember and relax in
comfort.

No one asking questions. No one talking about things which didn't
interest her tonight.

She undressed and slipped on a quilted dressing-gown, for the night
breeze from the open window was cool, and padded downstairs in her white
fur moccasins over the thick carpets to the bathroom on the floor below.
She had a long bath, with two squares of jasmine bath-salts crumbled
into the water as a gesture of extravagant luxury. Back in her own room
again, she brushed her hair (and decided to let it grow longer: much
more romantic), tied it with sea-blue ribbon to match her nightgown, and
even read ten pages of her new book.

Then Moira arrived. She looked tired and angry. Probably Father had had
a thing or two to say.

"There's a draught," Penny said, looking pointedly at the |t billowing
red-and-white-striped curtains. Moira came in and closed the door.

"Had a good time?" "Rotten," Moira said. She sat down on a chair with
more relief than grace.

"Nothing but stairs and steps and stairs all day. Edinburgh was not
built for sightseeing."

"Couldn't you get away earlier than this?"

"Some one had to look after them. Joan Taylor just disappeared with the
Americans." Moira looked angrily at her sister's amused face.

"If your legs and feet felt the way mine do you wouldn't think it was so
funny either."

"Was there a dance after dinner?"

"If you can call it that. A Frenchman sat down at the piano and gave us
"Ie jazz hot." And then I was pump-handled all over the floor, or given
a demonstration in the crouch style." "Never mind," Penny said
soothingly.

"It may have been trying for your feet, but it is awfully good
experience for Geneva--when you get there."

"At this moment," Moira said, "I don't want to see Geneva ever. I've no
international understanding left."

Penny rose now and came forward to her sister.

"Come on," she said.

"Better get to bed. I'll run a bath for you, and you can use my
bath-salts."

Moira didn't move.

"If you have left any," she said crossly.

"The whole place simply reeks with jasmine. Besides, I didn't come in
here totell you about how tired I am. I've a question or two to ask
you.

Just how. Miss. Lorrimer, do you get away with it?"

"With what?"

"Don't look so innocent. I saw you this afternoon. At the Castle."

"Did you? Well, what's the harm in that? All visitors are taken to the
Castle."

"To admire the view. But I didn't notice either of you doing much
view-admiring."

"Don't be an idiot. He called here this morning, invited us all to
lunch, and I was the only one free to act as guide for the afternoon.

That's all."

"So that's all. Why, he looked as if he was going to put his arms round
you."

"He did not," Penny said furiously.

"Just like a soldier with a shop girl "Don't be an idiot," Penny said,
and tried to laugh. Moira, she thought, had such a wonderful talent for
spoiling everything merely by discussing it.

But Moira had not finished.

"This evening," she said, in a voice that was much too smooth and
charming, "Jimmy Russell came over to talk to me for a moment. He is
running the tennis-club dance on Friday, and wanted me to bring you
along. He said, "I see your sister is now in circulation." I could have
hit him over the head. He is the wildest medical we have had for years;
and that's something.

"

"I don't know him."

"Well, he knows you. He saw you to-day. He had red hair and a wide
grin."

Oh!"

"Yes, oh 1' Moira said.

"Whatever possessed you to go to a tavern like that? What would Mummy
say if any of her friends had seen you?"

"There is nothing wrong with the place. It has very good food, and a lot
of men enjoying it. That's all."

Moira was silent for a moment. Then," she said scornfully, still
thinking of Jimmy Russell.

"Imagine his absolute cheek! It just shows you that you have got to be
so awfully careful."

And you take good care that I am. Penny thought angrily: you are worse
than Mother sometimes, as if you wished I were still fourteen years old.
She looked at Moira quickly as this new idea came to her mind. No good
challenging Moira, though. Moira had always excellent reasons" for
behaving as she did, even if they weren't the real reasons.

Moira sensed that her sister was amused about something. "But you've got
to be," she said sharply.

"How do you know that this David Bosworth isn't another Jimmy Russell?"

Penny laughed.

"Poor old Dr. Russell. You make him sound a monster.

Fascinating."

"Loathsome, I call it. Like that Italian to-day. These men shouldn't be
allowed out without their keepers."

"What Italian?" At last. Penny thought, the conversation is being
turned.

"Another self-appointed Romeo," Moira said airily, with all the superior
wisdom of her full twenty years.

"The older I get the more I find out that men deserve the worst being
thought of them."

"And how does that fit in with your International Understanding?"

Moira noticed her sister's smile, and her voice sharpened.

"It wouldn't do you any harm to try a little international good will
instead of enjoying yourself."

"Well," Penny couldn't resist saying, "David Bosworth is English."

"Englishmen don't count. Nor Americans. The hard work is with real
foreigners. To-day I was absolutely exhausted by them."

"Cheer up, Moira; they probably were exhausted by you."

Moira rose.

"We are not amused," she said, as coldly as the Widow of Windsor.

"I did my best, anyway. Besides, I am not particularly difficult. We
have been sensibly brought up, and that makes us very simple to
understand."

I wonder. Penny thought, I wonder if that kind of simplicity doesn't
cover a mass of thwarted emotions ...  On the surface it seemed so
controlled; underneath there were doubts and fears.

"I wonder," she said, 'if girls like you and me can ever make a man
happy.

Unless we start reeducating ourselves, of course."

Moira stared at her.

"What absolute bilge you talk sometimes," she said sharply.

"We have both been stuffed full of education. If any re-education is
needed, men can start it on themselves." She moved to the door, slowly,
as if she were thinking about something, and then paused there for a
moment. She said in a hushed voice, "I was talking to Joan Taylor about
Italy. And, do you know, she says a young girl --a pretty one, that
is--with a tight skirt can't walk down a street in Rome without
being--being nipped. Yes, she swears it's true. She was there last
Easter, you know. She said she came home all black and blue behind. Can
you imagine?"

Penny began to laugh.

"What's so funny? It is absolutely indecent."

"Painful too, I should think. But where was her powerful tennis
forehand?

Didn't she slap a few faces?"

"How could she? Think of the scandal in the street. Besides, she often
did not know who had done it. In fact, once she turned round like a
whirlwind, and the man raised his hat and smiled sweetly. What do you
think of that?

Who is it that has got to be re-educated there? Penny, stop laughing!"

Penny regained enough control to say, "Well, I think when Geneva sends
you on a mission into Italy you'd better invest in a bustle."

The laughter began to break down her voice again.

"Put it on your expense account. Call it your International
Underpinning."

"You shouldn't joke like that about it. And you shouldn't laugh at your
own jokes, anyway, when they are so bad."

"The worse they are the better like them," Penny said cheerfully.

"If you won't take my advice, why not ask Mother?" she added
mischievously.

At that moment Mrs. Lorrimer's voice said, "Penny, you are waking the
whole household. You should have been asleep long ago." The door opened,
and Mrs. Lorrimer, in her marabou-trimmed gown and a boudoir cap which
covered her hair entirely entered.

"Moira, what are you doing here? You should have been in bed by this
time.

It is almost midnight. Did I hear that you wanted my advice about
something?"

"Oh, I was wondering about the colour of my new dance frock," Moira said
quickly.

"We can discuss that at breakfast," Mrs. Lorrimer said.

"Now to bed with you." She turned to leave the room.

"Good night, Penelope," she said severely, as she went into the hall.

Moira looked angrily at Penny, who had caught up a cushion and, holding
it behind her back, was limping ostentatiously round the room.

"Good night. Mother," Penny called. She ignored her sister's undignified
face-twisting, and said, much too gently, "Good night, my sweet." The
door closed with a satisfactory bang.

"Moira!" her mother said warningly. And then the murmur of voices and
the footsteps died away.

Penny threw the cushion back on to the bed, went to the window, pulled
the curtains aside, and leaned on her elbows as she stood at the sill to
watch the night sky. At least, she was thinking, I know how to deal with
Moira.

For tomorrow Moira would start her little side remarks. She would begin
to hum, "There is a tavern in the town, in the town," or talk about
'castle walls old in story," until Penny became a bundle of raw temper
and Mother would start asking what was wrong. But now. Penny thought, if
she starts any little hidden references I'll start limping. Poor old
Moira, how easily her leg was pulled! Joan Taylor had certainly pulled
it very hard this time.

Penny looked at the sky. Navy blue with a hint of rich purple, she
decided.

The soft wisps of cloud travelled over the stars, hiding and then
revealing them as the night wind drove on. There was the Plough, and
there the Pointers at the edge of its blade; and then a space of sky,
and then the brilliance of the North Star. So that was the north, and
down there was the south, and four hundred miles south was London.
London. She kept repeating the magic name.

She would live in Bloomsbury. She would walk about the streets, and look
and look, and never have too much of looking. She would see strange
things, and eat strange foods, and meet strange people. She would have a
room of her own, a room of her own where no one would come unless she
invited them. She would choose her own friends.

And, of course, she would work; she would be able to paint and think of
painting without Moira and Betty and Mother all pulling her away from
it. No more interruptions unless she wanted to be interrupted.

And if she could get working well enough, perhaps there would be some
success, just a little one, and that would be enough to start her.

London would be the gateway to a whole new world. She would travel.

She could live on an island in the Mediterranean; she could paint in a
small village high among the Alps. She would see Paris and New York and
Vienna.

She would see Everywhere. London was the gateway, and she was standing
at it. She shivered with happiness.

Perhaps, also, the air was cold. She stopped looking at the North Star,
pulled her shoulders back into the room, and drew the curtains together.
She removed the quilted dressing- gown, stood for a moment looking at
herself very seriously in the long dressing-table mirror.

Then she freed her arms from the shoulder-straps of her nightdress, and
let it fall in its quick satin shimmer to her feet. Now she looked at
herself critically, turning slowly round to study the curve of her
shoulders, the shape of her back, her slender, taut waistline, her
smooth round hips. The line of tan, ending so abruptly at her neck and
arms, made her skin seem whiter. When I go to the Mediterranean, she
thought, I'll have a tan that goes all over, and no white bands of
flesh. I'll lie in the sun and feel my backbone melt. I'll wear thin
clothes and feel my body breathe: no more sweaters and tweed skirts, and
not ever pneumonia.

She raised her arms, gently, gracefully ...  Women look their best with
their arms above their heads, she decided. The Greeks had known that. So
had the inventors of ballet. She took a slow dance step forward, let one
shoulder droop and her waist's curve be emphasized; and then slowly drew
her body erect again. Women can be lovely, she thought. And why not? If
Nature had meant us to be ugly she would have made us so, with no waist
or curves or soft lines flowing into each other. She would have made us
squares or cubes with thick, grey skin: much more practical for living,
if she had wanted us to be practical. She shouldn't have made us this
way if she did not want us to be admired. And if we can't find pleasure
in the way we look, then we are hypocrites, and we don't deserve to be
made this way; we might as well look like an intelligent rhinoceros.

She stopped being Pavlova, and tried to imitate the Venus de Milo.

But it was difficult to hold that double twist of the body for any
length of time. I bet the model could have brained the sculptor with his
ov/n chisel.

Penny thought, as she dropped the pose.

She strayed away from the mirror and went over to the bookcase. She
searched for the atlas in its bottom shelf, and turned the pages quickly
until she

"London and the Southern Counties." It wasn't there: it must be farther
north than she had thought. She tried

"London and the Midland Counties," and found it. She measured carefully
with thumb and forefinger and consulted the scale of miles.

Why, Oxford was quite near London, nearer than she had imagined.

About seventy miles roughly. That was nothing at all!

She sneezed suddenly, and realized her body was chilled. It was
difficult to be romantic in a cold climate: the Greeks would never have
produced their sculptors if they had inhabited Iceland. She rose, put
out the light quickly, and slid into bed. She lay there a moment,
remembering that sh^ had forgotten to open the curtains.

"Oh, damn!" she said, and got out of bed, and ran quickly over to draw
them apart. Now she could fall asleep looking at the stars.

The linen sheets were cold. It was like bathing in a mountain stream.

After the first shivering shock it was pleasant to stretch her body and
feel the cool, clear water slip over her. Then she became practical
again, but not practical enough to get out of bed once more for the
abandoned nightgown lying in front of the mirror, and she curled up and
hugged herself to get warm. She was too excited to sleep. She would
think about to-day. It had been a good day. She lay, tightly curled up
in the cold, narrow bed, and thought about everything that had happened
in the order that it had happened.

She had reached the restaurant episode, when the growing warmth of the
bed relaxed her body. She stretched out -her legs slowly, feeling
wonderfully comfortable and content. To be continued, she thought
drowsily. What a very poor Scheherazade she would make, not even waiting
for the dawn of day.

She yawned, smiled, fell asleep, all in the same delightful minute.

The train from Scotland pulled into the last station on its long
journey, and halted with a final deep-drawn breath. The carriage doors
were flung wide open and left hanging on the hinge. The passengers
straggled over the broad platform. They moved stiffly, as if the long
rest in the train had exhausted them. The electric lamps, suspended high
overhead from the enormous vault of soot-stained glass, cast a bleak
light on the tired faces to make them lined and haggard.

"Another lot of perishers come 'ome from their 'olidays," one porter
said to his mate, as he rolled a heavy milk-can towards his trolly. He
grinned when a well-dressed man jumped nervously out of the way as the
can rattled ominously near. Out of the side of his mouth he said, "Gawd,
Jim, ain't they the walking dead?" There was no malice in his voice, but
rather a comic lack of sympathy.

David, following on the heels of the nervous gentleman, grinned too.

This was London all right. Same old voices, same old smell of soot and
smoke, same old feeling that the air had been breathed a thousand times
before it reach his lungs. He had forgotten how warm it could be at
midnight when even the breezes were tepid, and the callous lights in the
station increased the feeling of heat and exhaustion.

Every one looked as if he needed a holiday. Those who had been spending
an evening in town--the girls, with their flimsy dresses, funny hats,
bright red lips, and their thin-shouldered young men--were white and
listless, and did not even try to recapture the crisp gaiety they had
felt at six o'clock in the evening. Those who were returning from the
country were beginning to walk more briskly, as if to assert that they
at least were healthy, but the tan on their faces now gave an appearance
of incipient jaundice. It must be the lighting, David thought, as he
glanced at himself in the fly-spotted mirror of a chocolate slot-machine
and noticed the lines under his eyes, too: we can't all have kidney
trouble. Back to civilization..

Loch Innish was in another planet.

And yet he was glad to be home. He never knew how much he had missed
London until he was back in it again. He changed his bag to his left
hand, and searched in his pocket for his exact fare. The sickly smell of
the Underground, always stronger in summer, reached him while he was
still some paces away from its red, circling sign. He hurried down E the
flight of stairs, walking quickly between white-tiled walls, towards the
steadily moving escalator which would bear him deep into the heart of
his own city.

Chapter Twelve.

DAVID COMES HOME.

David left the bright lights of Chiswick's high street and crossed over
the small dark common, where the trees and dim lamplight gave at least
the appearance of coolness. He entered the long street, with its rows of
neat houses stretching so silently before him. Most of the windows which
he passed were already dark. Here and there a bedroom lamp was lit,
dimly glowing behind its pink silk shade. The road was empty except for
an occasional man with his pipe and his dog, or a straggling couple
walking home slowly with arms linked. He noticed the cracks between the
paving-stones, and remembered how he used, as a child, to make this long
stretch of road seem shorter by counting his paces, measuring them
carefully so that he would never step on the black, dust- filled lines.

Twice he stopped to rest his bag and change his carrying hand. Soon home
now, he thought as he paused for the second time. Those he had passed in
the street had found their houses, and the silence was complete and
waiting for his footsteps. A cat, out on its mysterious business, looked
at him suspiciously. He could see its eyes, reflecting the lamplight
behind him, turn to flat luminous disks. And then they too vanished, and
he was left alone in possession of the street. Here was the house with
lace curtains, here was the house with the green gate, here was the
house with the disastrous yellow door. And here at last, by the red
pillar-box under the lamp-post, was the entrance to Cory's Walk.

It began as a side-street, so insignificant that a stranger-- |$ perhaps
even the residents in 'the more prosperous little villas surrounding
it--would pass it without remembering it. For it wasn't even a useful
short-cut to some place more important. Only the people who lived there
appreciated its seclusion, its lack of traffic, along with the modest
rents which suited their budgets. But even they could not call it
charming. The eleven boxlike houses which stood in a tight row along one
side of Cory's Walk were of red brick, now dirty and soot-lined at the
seams; jaundice-coloured plaster framed the narrow doors and small
windows; the wood-work, once a possible green, had turned a greyish
black; the railings, shielding the small patches of earth in front of
each house, had forgotten the touch of a paintbrush.

There they were, the eleven small houses clustered together as if to
encourage each other; and the red brick wall which ended the little
road; and another red brick wall, longer, higher, opposite the row of
houses, separating them coldly from the garden of the mansion which had
given the Walk its name. Only the tops of the lime-trees, which overhung
the long wall in their friendly way, were evidence that a garden did
exist. Cory House itself, buried silently behind trees and high walls,
preferred not to notice what had happened around it.

y days when Nathaniel Cory had built it as a country house, north of the
Thames and north-east of fashionable Kew Gardens. It must have been a
pleasant place, surrounded by fields and woods, for many a gay week-end
party. Now it was owned by a lay sisterhood as intent on their future
salvation as Mr. Cory had been on his worldly relaxation. And in a few
years' time, it was rumoured, the ninety-nine-year lease would be ended
and the house in the garden and the houses in the walk would be equally
levelled, and there would be a new street with noble buildings, an
arcade of pleasant shops, and a children's green playground. Margaret
Bosworth had laughed when she heard that. She had remarked, "Yes we talk
that way  ...  until we start building."

David halted by the pillar-box at the corner, and felt in his pocket for
the letter. He looked thoughtfully at the address, comparing it with the
row of silent houses beside him. This forest of brick through which he
had walked in the last fifteen minutes looked mean and makeshift. The
architect and builder should have been imprisoned for inflicting such
eyesores on their fellow-citizens. For that was the trouble about
houses: they stood there for years, looking at you. Hurting you, too;
pulling you down to their level. It seemed monstrous that people who
could afford only cheap houses should find themselves automatically
surrounded by ugliness. And it did not take many years before they had
little sensitivity left in them. It had been smothered to death by the
amount of bad taste forced on them by their poverty.

David smiled wryly. Here he was, standing with his letter in his hand,
feeling hot and tired, arguing with himself about the obvious in order
to postpone a decision. I must be more tired than I feel, he decided, or
I would not be standing here like this. Oh, hell, make up your mind.

A policeman, marking his solitary rounds with heavy footsteps, halted
across the street and walked over to the lamppost. He looked at the bag,
and then at the young man standing by the pillar-box.

"Good evening, officer." No, I am not loitering with intent.

"Evening, sir." The policeman was more assured as he had a closer look
at the young man.

David grinned, and said, "I must look a fool standing here, but the
truth is, officer, I can't make up my mind whether to post this letter
or write another one."

The policeman relaxed. He stood with his feet apart, his, hands clasped
behind his back.

"Important letter, sir?"

"Very."

"Then if you've any doubts you'd better look at it again. That's my
advice.

I'm not much of a letter-writer myself, but sometimes things are read
different from what they are written."

"Yes," David agreed. It was a rotten letter, now that he thought over
it.

He shoved it back in his pocket.

"Good night. Thanks for the advice."

"That's all right, sir. Breaks the monotony for me. Quiet round here,
although we may have a spot of trouble." His voice sounded hopeful.

"People away on holidays, you know: houses all shut up. Good night,
sir." He gave a forefinger salute and started his lonely march, his
thick-soled boots giving their word of comfort to all those who lay
awake and heard the steady echo.

One o'clock and all's well, David thought, as he picked up the bag and
entered Cory's Walk. Yes, it was a rotten letter, full of gush and
sentiment.

Cory's Walk had played its little part in bringing him back to earth.

He passed the first six houses with sadness rather than distaste.

They tried so hard, he thought. The Crescent in Edinburgh had been a row
of houses all very much alike, too. But similarly when it has money
behind it becomes a solid wall of convention, of permanence, even of
defiance.

Similarity conceived and born in poverty becomes an inferiority complex.
One had only to look at this row of brick rabbit-hutches to feel that a
giant wind might blow them all into crumbling dust. The people who lived
in them must be haunted by their own impermanence--jobs that could be
lost, money that wouldn't cover necessities unless pleasures were cut to
nothing. Their life meant only a round of small worries and distasteful
duties, the constant battle for respectability of the lower middle
class.

He noticed that Number 2 had planted three small rose- trees in its plot
of garden, and Number 4 had painted its railing. But Number 3, into
which new tenants had moved last spring, looked worse than ever.

Another year or two, and they would succeed in converting their houses
into a genuine slum.

As he opened the gate to Number 7, took six paces to the three stone
steps, and then searched for his key David was thinking that it wasn't
enough to be given something: you also had to make an effort to keep it.
If you had money you paid other people to make the effort for you. But
nothing could continue to be as it had been without an effort. And yet,
how could Number 3 be really condemned? They were living, by spending
money on clothes and pleasure--only on a very reduced scale--as Lady
Fenton-Stevens and her friends lived. No doubt Lady Fenton-Stevens hated
housework and dish-washing just as much as the woman at Number 3. But
then. La Fenton-Stevens had married a rich man. That had turned out
pleasantly for her, but it certainly wasn't any mark of moral virtue.
She and her friends were just as lazy and incompetent in actual
scrubbing and scouring as the woman at Number 3. They were all equals in
their search for enjoyment, sisters of definitely the same breed. And as
long as people praised Lady Fenton-Stevens's photographs in fashionable
magazines they had no moral justification for sneering at Number 3's
dirty doorstep.

I'm certainly home, David thought, as he realized his own bitterness. He
opened the door quickly, closed it quietly, and stood for a moment to
get his bearings in the dark hall. It was small and narrow, with a steep
staircase leading abruptly upstairs from the hall stand. In his caution
he knocked against the collection of umbrellas and walking-sticks which
stood on either side of its table.

He grabbed at them as they moved, scraping heavily on their metal-lined
stand, but in the darkness some of them slipped free of the wooden rail
which supported them and clattered on to the linoleum floor.

"Damn," he said softly, and had to switch on the light after all.

Then he started to mount the stairs cautiously, but the second one
creaked as it always did.

"David." It was his father's voice.

David retraced his steps, placed his bag beside the hall stand, and
opened the door which lay opposite.

"Sorry, Father. I didn't mean to waken you. I was trying not to."

The shadowy face against the white pillows smiled.

"That's all right, David. I wasn't asleep, anyway. Did you have a good
holiday?"

"Fine. I'll tell you all about it to-morrow." David crossed over to the
heavy wooden bedstead, carefully avoiding the invalid chair which stood
at its side. He lifted the thin hand which stretched over the
counterpane to meet his, and said, as he pressed it gently, "Let me draw
down those blinds. That lamplight is keeping you awake."

"No. I can't breathe when the windows are covered. That keeps the air
out."

"It's pretty warm to-night," David agreed. He heard the light clatter of
heelless slippers on the wooden stairs.

"That's Margaret," he said, with a smile, 'coming to give me a row about
wakening you up."

David's father smiled too, as Margaret appeared in her cotton kimono at
the doorway and said, "David, you can see Father in the morning.

This is a dreadful hour to come home."

For a moment the two men enjoyed the shared feeling of innocent
-conspiracy against female authority. Then David said, "Good night.

Father." And, remembering the thin face staring so hopelessly up at the
ceiling as he had entered the room, he suddenly bent over the bed and
kissed his father's gaunt cheek.

Margaret closed the door impatiently.

"Really, David!" she said.

"We've only one article of furniture in this hall, and you had to fall
over it."

*I had forgotten how narrow the hall was," David said. He pulled one of
the long dark plaits of hair which hung over her shoulder.

"How are you?" he asked affectionately.

"You look about fifteen in that rig-out."

Margaret's thin face softened for a moment. She tossed the plait out of
his reach.

"I'm all right, but Scotland seems to have ruined your eyesight. Now
that you have got me thoroughly wakened, what about a cup of tea or
something?"

"You'll probably curse me, but I should like some tea. And a sandwich. I
haven't had anything to eat since midday." "Well," Margaret said
shrewdly, 'they say beer is nourishing."

He laughed softly, and followed her towards the kitchen. Same old Meg,
same old house, David thought.

"Why didn't you have dinner on the train?" Margaret asked him, as her
slippers clopped over the linoleum floor from sink to gas-stove. She
looked round in her half-worried, half shortsighted way. -David took a
box of matches out of his pocket, rattled it to make sure there were
still some there, and threw it over towards her.

"I didn't feel very hungry," he said. Actually he hadn't felt like
paying three shillings and sixpence for lukewarm boiled cod smothered in
melting lanoline, with a dab of green garbage on top. And he hadn't been
able to get any beer, either.

Margaret looked at him quickly.

"The cheque?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Lady Fenton-Stevens will no doubt tell her secretary in a day or two,"
he said bitterly.

"Oh  ..." Margaret sat down on the other kitchen chair.

Disappointment chased away that young look: suddenly she seemed much
older than her twenty-five years. Now you noticed that she was too thin
(she was very proud of her lack of breasts and hips), and that the
sloping shoulders were round. The bright kitchen light robbed her of any
pretension to prettiness. Her skin was sallow; her eyebrows were too
heavily marked; her lips were too pale, too tight. (In the daytime she
wore her heavy black hair drawn sleekly into a knot at the nape of her
long, slender neck. With lipstick to broaden the narrow edge of mouth,
and powder to camouflage sallowness, she could look extremely
attractive. ) David now watched her, half affectionately, half
worriedly, but with a touch of horror. He wondered how many women looked
like this once the make-up was removed.

Margaret said, "No Cornwall. No holiday. She will never send it in
time."

"I've thought it all out," he said quickly, moved by her pathetic face.

"If the cheque doesn't come through before you go to Cornwall I'll give
you the money which I set aside for the first weeks back in Oxford. The
cheque will surely arrive in time to keep me solvent.

Don't worry, Meg. This is what is known as high finance. You filch out
of one reserve to pay for immediate needs, and then use the money for
that to fill up the old reservoir again. Don't worry." "You and Montagu
Norman," Margaret said, but the pathetic look had gone. She was suddenly
indignant.

"She'll probably forget all about it."

"No, no. After all, she came asking me to take on the job. I didn't go
begging her for it."

"What were they like? The boys you tutored, I mean."

"Decent enough. But between you and me, Meg, there were moments when I
thought they were solid teak above here." He placed his forefingers
across his eyebrows.

"So it wasn't all holiday," his sister conceded. She rose to deal with
the bubbling kettle. She was in good humour again: she was reassured
about Cornwall.

"Not entirely," her brother said, with quiet irony, which was lost in
the ritual of heating the brown teapot. It would have been a wonderful
place for a real holiday, he thought.

"You'll find some cold meat in the pantry," Margaret was saying.

David took the hint, and went foraging for his sandwich. The pantry
window was wide open, protected from flies and marauding cats by a
gauze-wire screen. The milk- bottle stood on a marble slab in front of
the window for coolness, but even so the milk had turned sour. A damned
waste, he thought angrily.

"What is Scotland like?" Margaret was saying.

"Whom did you meet?"

David brought some cold mutton into the kitchen, and the small brown
crock which held butter floating in salted water. He planked them down
on the table.

"Better wash first and get rid of the grime," he said.

"What's Scotland like?" Margaret repeated.

"Not that one, David; that's the dish-towel. Over there  ...  that's
right."

"I'll tell you all about it to-morrow," he said.

"You go up to bed, Margaret. I'll have a sandwich and then turn in too."

"I'm going to have a cup of tea. It's too warm to sleep anyway, so we
may as well talk."

David thought of the letter he wanted to write and post so that it could
reach Edinburgh by to-morrow night. He began totell her about Loch
Innish.

He talked, too, of Inchnamurren and Dr. MacLntyre.

Briefly, because he had the feeling, once he did start to talk, that
Margaret's attention was not always focused on what he was saying; it
was strange how people could ask you to explain something, and then
after the first few sentences they would hardly bother to listen. If you
stopped explaining, of course, they would be hurt. He didn't say
anything, however, about the Lorrimer family beyond a short reference to
their visit to Inchnamurren. He knew instinctively that Margaret would
be antagonized by the idea of Penny. She had sulked for weeks when she
had learned about Eleanor Fenton-Stevens, for instance: a cool,
calculated sulking to show her disapproval. She had never given any
reason for it, even after Eleanor and the sulking period were both over.

"It must have been wonderful," Margaret said.

"How I envy you, David.

You get all the luck, don't you?"

"Well----" he said, and then smiled and said no more about that.

"Perhaps we'd better turn in now. You will have a lot of packing to do
tomorrow."

"I've packed everything already. I don't need so very much for two or
three weeks. Just as well, isn't it, considering the state of my
wardrobe? And Cornwall is so very quiet."

"Well, why not choose a gayer place if you want it? You will have money
enough for a decent holiday," David said, trying to keep his voice even.

"Oh, it is all settled. Florence is expecting me. She has been having a
miserably lonely summer, and she would never forgive me if I didn't go.
She is counting the weeks until she can be back in London. She will
probably be qualified by next spring."

"Qualified as what?" David couldn't resist asking. *A piano mover

Florence Rawson, the large, raw-boned daughter of a country doctor in
Cornwall, had met Margaret at the College of Music in their first year
as students there. Florence was going to be the composer, Margaret the
concert pianist. Time had altered Margaret's plans: when her mother died
she had had to come home here to look after her father, and she could
only manage to attend an occasional class once or twice a week. But her
friendship with Florence Rawson had increased, and they never seemed
bored with each other or their ideas however much these were repeated.
They were egocentrics whose thoughts were like a pleasing reflection in
a mirror. Narcissus-like, Margaret and Florence would gaze at them for
months without any distaste, any self-criticism. Probably for years,
David considered. But then, he didn't particularly like Florence Rawson.
Her tweeds and booming laugh and hearty step, her perpetual assumption
that men, were either fools or in league to keep women from the major
careers in life, filled him with horror.

"You don't need to be so cruel about Florence," Margaret said, in swift
defence.

"She's as clever as you are--perhaps cleverer." "That wouldn't be
difficult," David said lightly. He rose, and cleared away the cups and
saucers.

"Come on, Meg, let's get to bed. I am beginning to feel exhausted."

She said suddenly, "You are going up to Oxford the week before term
starts, aren't you?"

David looked at her in surprise.

"I don't know yet. I might stay here until term begins." At the end of
September Penny would be arriving in London.

"But you said you were going up early to Oxford this term."

*I have been thinking it would be cheaper to stay here: it would save me
an extra week of batt els

"Why can't you say " bills"? That Oxford talk gives me a pain, as if you
were all in some secret society or something." Her voice was angry.

"Every one says batt els and has been saying it for centuries: it won't
be dropped just because you don't like it, Margaret." He looked at her
worried face.

"Come on. Out with it. Why do you want me to go back a week earlier than
necessary?"

She was disconcerted by the unexpected question. She hesitated, and then
came out with the truth flatly.

"I've asked Florence to come here for that week."

David stared at her.

"You mean she is going to have my room?"

"Don't get angry. You'll waken Father. Besides, as long as you haven't a
job, just where are we to find a guest-room when we need it?"

He ignored the jibe.

"How long is she going to be here?"

"Until she finds new digs. Her landlady last year was horrid.

Objected to the piano being played."

"Probably didn't want it to be pounded into matchwood."

"You can save your witticsms for Oxford. You are all so gay and lordly
there, aren't you?"

David restrained his rising temper.

"Did you ask Father about this? I don't imagine an invalid particularly
enjoys a stranger crashing all over his house."

"Florence won't disturb Father. Besides, you might remember that if it
weren't for me this house would not exist. Who looks after it and keeps
it going? As well as giving those awful piano lessons to make enough
money for a little tuition at the College of Music?"

As usual, David was beaten. When Margaret started enumerating her
virtues he was always beaten.

David said, "Look this is a silly hour of the morning to start having
arguments. Come on, Meg." He walked over to the kitchen window opened
it, and promptly let two large moths and a swarm of gnats into the room.

"Oh, damn!" he said.

"Switch off the light, Meg, and keep the rest of these blighters
outside.

Why can't there be something invented to let you have windows open and
lights on and still be comfortable in summer?"

Then are so good at changing the subject," Margaret said acidly, as she
rose and switched out the light.

And some women, David thought, don't change the subject often enough.

Anyway, the light was now out, and they could start moving upstairs, and
he could have half an hour of peace before he went to bed. But he found
himself standing by the window, looking out into the small square of
garden turned to silver in the bright moonlight. The rambling roses,
which his mother had planted some years ago, now spread over the wooden
fences which separated this garden from the others. The grass was worn
thin in patches where his father's invalid-chair rested through the day.

Margaret came over to stand beside him. She watched him curiously.

"What is worrying you?" she asked. Six weeks in Scotland .

Oxford  ...  What had he to complain about?

David said slowly, "Father. There is a big change in him even in these
last six weeks. I got quite a shock when I saw him." David suddenly saw
again the thin, hopeless face staring up at the blank ceiling.

"Wish we could get him into the country."

"How? James, bring round the Rolls no, I think the Daimler to-night, and
we'll drive down to Little Toad-in-the- Hole." She paused, and then, as
David didn't reply, the mockery left her voice, and she said, "Don't
worry, David. Father is all right. I look after him well. It is probably
only this ghastly weather. You know we tried to persuade him to go and
live in the country. But he says that London has always been his home,
and that he is lonely when he's away from it. He likes the distant
noises: he listens for the trains, and for the boats on the river. And
he sits for hours beside his bedroom window watching the children
playing in the Walk.

Besides, what would I do in the country?"

"He has lost heart since Mother died; that's what is wrong with him,"
David said.

"That's the whole trouble." His father had been an uncomplaining
invalid, even cheerful, in spite of the long, throttling siege of
illness. It had tightened slowly but surely from the time he had been
invalided out of the Army he had been one of the survivors of the Kut
garrison partly because of wounds, partly because of some Middle East
microbe which continued to attack him long after the wounds had healed.
At first his father had resented the idea of being condemned to illness
for the rest of his life: he had tried to pick up his career where 1914
had interrupted it. But that had been impossible. It was then that his
mother, the impractical woman, had become the practical leader of the
family: they had moved from St. John's Wood to this house in Cory's
Walk, and their whole life had been scaled down to meet the new
necessity. And his mother had succeeded, with work and care and thought,
in making a home where there could even be laughter. But now his
father's will to live had gone. In these last four years he had become
silent and moody.

"In spite of all their bad luck, they were really happy," David said
quietly.

Margaret was silent for a moment.

"The moonlight is making you sentimental," she said briefly. Wouldn't
Mother have been happier if she had never married? She would have made a
big success as a concert pianist.

"How could she ever have been happy?" Margaret added, in a harsh, angry
voice.

"She was," David said quietly.

"You had only to look at her face to see that. She never thought she had
sacrificed anything, compared to what Father had given up. He would have
been a good architect if the War hadn't come along. And he was never as
bitter about that as he could have been. Said he wasn't the only one who
was left a crock."

"And just how much credit was given us for that? Those who didn't suffer
because of the War forgot very easily, it seems to me."

David glanced quickly at his sister's bitter face.

"It would have been worse for all of us if we had lost the War. That's
what Father keeps saying, and he is right. What angers him to-day is the
way we forget that, the way that it has become fashionable not to talk
like that.

It is a pity, isn't it, that people will follow fashions even if it
kills them? Like a lot of diabetics insisting on eating chocolates."

Margaret stirred impatiently, and then moved slowly towards the kitchen
door.

She didn't like this kind of talk.

Father's mind had never progressed beyond the year 1919, but it was a
pity that he should influence David like this. David, with all his
advantages .

In such moments she always chose to forget that David had provided for
his own education since the age of twelve by winning competitive
examinations, that he had already won three scholarships to Oxford,
which not only paid for his tuition and lodgings and food, but allowed a
margin for a careful budget in books and clothes. ) "It is after two
o'clock. I'm going to bed," she said.

Good, David thought.

"Besides, the War was all a mistake," Margaret went on, not leaving well
enough alone.

"We should stop talking about it."

"I've always wondered why a war should have been thought important
enough to let so many be killed and maimed if it can be forgiven and
forgotten so easily."

"If every one had been like the workers, with no vested interests to
think of, there would have been no war."

"Aren't you forgetting nationalism? The German workers put on uniforms
and marched. The others had to march too, or be marched over. You've
found every reason why there should have been no war, except the
practical one.

What do you do when another nation puts on uniform and starts marching?
Just lie down and wave your legs feebly?"

"Don't be so coarse, David. The trouble with you is that you don't take
things seriously enough. You are just not politically conscious, that's
all."

David grinned.

"Been seeing much of Breen recently?" he asked innocently. Roger Breen,
another of Margaret's peculiar friends  ... Why couldn't Meg choose some
one who was pleasant to have about the house just for a change?

Margaret said nothing, but the way she set down her feet on the stairs
and the angle at which she held her head described her annoyance
sufficiently.

She was probably thinking up some corker to give him as a parting
thought.

David was right: she paused at her bedroom door to say, "It never is any
use arguing with your preconceived ideas, David. Your holiday with the
rich and powerful has only made you more of a reactionary." J David
still smiled, but his eyes had hardened.

"See you at breakfast," he said.

"I've got a scarf tucked away somewhere in my bag for you; couldn't find
that Gaelic music, but we may be able to track it down in London if it
interests you."

Thank you, David. You shouldn't have bothered." She was embarrassed,
conscious of the change in her tone of voice." I'm sorry I was cross.

It's the heat, I think. And I've been worried. Just things, you know.

My music, and Father, and everything." She turned away suddenly.

"Good night, David," she said, in a suddenly muffled voice.

"Good night." Poor old Meg, he thought suddenly. There wasn't anything
wrong with her which a legacy of a hundred pounds could not cure. That
was all most people needed: just a sense of a little security. They
could face their problems more easily then.

In his room he unpacked his writing-pad from his bag, and placed his
books in their proper place beside the others in his bookcase. The row
of titles welcomed him home. Plato, Hegel, Descartes, Kant, Fichte,
Mills, Marx, Locke, Bentham, Rousseau, Engels ...  Not politically
conscious, he remembered. Roger Breen was, of course; although one had
to wonder sometimes when talking to him if he moved his lips when he
read. Home Sweet Home, David thought.

He sat wearily down on the hard chair at his desk. He pulled the
crumpled letter from his pocket. Too emotional, too damned cocksure of
himself. Yet it said what he wanted to say. If he could see his future
clearly he would say it. But he had nothing but uncertainty before him,
and he couldn't say it. His sister and his father, each in their own
way, had reminded him of that. He tore the letter to pieces. He suddenly
felt miserably tired and unhappy.

He wrote a very simple note, beginning "Dear Penny' and ending with "
Yours sincerely, David Bosworth." He thanked her for the pleasant day he
had enjoyed in Edinburgh, he hoped he would see her in Oxford or in
London.

He read the note again. Suddenly he added a postscript. When would she
arrive in London, and what was her address to be? Quickly he closed the
envelope, stamped it, addressed it. You thought you were a fool, he told
himself, as he changed his shoes for his thin slippers, which would make
less noise on the staircase, because you let yourself see her again. But
you would- be a bigger fool if you hadn't . or if you don't.

Once he was quietly out of the house he ran swiftly towards the
pillar-box at the corner of Cory's Walk. The next collection was 6:30 a.
m. Good.

Farther down the street he saw the solitary figure of a policeman. It
had recognized him. He saluted back, and then hurried towards his house.

It was cooler now, and the night sky was beginning to lighten. He stood
by the open window feeling the first stirring of the early morning
breeze on his shoulders as he pulled off his shirt. It was strange how
natural he could be with Penny, as if he were walking with only himself
for company: no feeling of effort, or strain. That came before a meeting
with her, or afterwards, but when he was with her  ...  He kept thinking
about Penny as he undressed and prepared for bed. And he kept thinking
about her, even after he had fallen into a restless sleep.

Chapter Thirteen.

COUNTERPOINT.

Margaret had gone to Cornwall, and the month passed pleasantly in Cory's
Walk. Mrs. Trumble, Margaret's weekly stand-by, now came in for an hour
each day to 'wash up and dust round," as she said. She was a silent,
smiling woman who--with a husband out of work and nine children below
employable age--was glad to add a few extra shillings to the family's
dole. Beyond the fact that she lived near the river, and that her eldest
son was called Ernie, and was a bright lad at school (this information
was called forth only by the quantity of books on David's desk), David
could learn little about her. She did her work quickly, and then
departed in quiet haste to merge into her own mysterious orbit once
more. He would have been amazed to hear the intricate discussions on
Number 7 Cory's Walk, in Mrs. Trumble's kitchen, with her visiting
neighbours over a dish of tea.

"Give me men every time," Mrs. Trumble would say, and her visitors, all
with at least six children to their credit, would agree.

Certainly life in Cory's Walk had become very simple. Mr. Bosworth
seemed to enjoy it. If meals were not always punctual or even elaborate
they could be digested in peace. And David was happy: his work was going
well, and the odd hours spent with his father in the garden were
pleasant for both men. They talked about the things his father liked to
discuss--about the war that was so long over and yet was still so fresh
in his father's mind, about politicians' limitations, about the Middle
East, about the news in to-day's papers, about Oxford, about the
constant elections in Germany, about David's possible future. He had
always got on well with his father, but now he seemed to understand him
still better.

And it was easy to be happy with this new background of elation to all
his thoughts. He was writing twice a week to Scotland, and twice a week
he had his replies. He would have written every day if Mr. Lorrimer had
not to be reckoned with. Penny reported that a letter even twice a week
was raising eyebrows in one half of the family and amused comment in the
other half.

Her first reply had been as stilted as his first letter. And then, as
his letters had become fuller, she had gradually thawed out. When he had
changed

"My dear Penny' he had become "My dear David." She wouldn't have done
that if she hadn't at least liked him. He convinced himself of that,
remembering her upbringing and background. This, in a way, put all the
responsibility of future developments completely on his shoulders. But
in a way, too, that was how he as a man wanted it to be. The delicate
balance of human relationships, of a woman and a man with two separate
and well-defined personalities learning to adjust them to each other,
would have been over weighted if she had been more confident, more
dominant than he was.

He no longer tried to rationalize or justify his summer madness. He was
content to feel the excitement which raced through his blood when he saw
her neat, decided writing on an incoming envelope, or to hold the
happiness which swept over him when he took his pen and sat down to
write to her. And he knew instinctively that if he once let her slip he
would never find her again.

September came at last, with its greyer skies and cool evenings. The
mists hung over the river at night, and spread northward towards Cory's
Walk, leaving a few wisps to trail over the gardens in the morning. The
roses were fading, and hung full and loose-petalled on the branch ready
to be scattered over summer's grave.

People like Margaret Bosworth, who had been out of town, returned with
brown and healthy faces to mock those whose earlier summer holidays were
already forgotten. She came back with a new store of energy, which she
proceeded to use in deploring the state into which the house had fallen
during her absence. David and his father retired unanimously into their
own rooms to read. Mrs. Trumble's hurt feelings developed into sciatica,
and she stayed away for a couple of weeks, to return when she decided
that she had asserted her independence sufficiently and that Ernie
needed a new pair of boots for school.

It was bad enough, David reflected, to have this tornado of energy
strike with full force, to be made to feel he ought to offer his help,
to have his routine completely upset and his work made more difficult,
without being conscious of the fact that all this was happening because
of the Rawson woman.

Ill After all, Margaret said, the house could not just be run to suit
him alone. True enough, but still damned annoying.

She had made that remark when they were washing up the supper dishes
together. ("If I take time off my own work to cook for you I don't see
why you can't take time off to help clear things up." Again, true
enough. But still damned annoying. ) Then she removed her rubber gloves,
looked at her hands critically, and massaged some lotion into them.

"I'll go upstairs now," she said.

"I have some Busoni studies to practise before Roger comes to collect
me."

And I'll come and insist you move the piano to another corner of the
room when you are in the middle of them, David thought.

"What's amusing you, David? You needn't laugh at piano exercises.

They are hard work."

"I know. How's your Jeux d'eau coming along?"

"Slowly. I'll have it perfect in another week."

In time for dear Florence, David thought. Yet Margaret's actions, from
Margaret's point of view, were all justifiable. She was the mistress of
this house by virtue of her work in it. Her father was the master,
paying for the rent and food out of his pension. David was only a
boarder, who contributed his share to the household expenses when he was
at home.

"What's wrong, David?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking I'm probably rather a nuisance to
you--extra trouble and all that."

Margaret's thin face looked at him searchingly.

"You aren't a nuisance," she said.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Then she tried to assume a more casual
tone.

"You know, David, I've often thought it was madness for you to go to
Oxford.

If you had entered an office of some kind you would have been earning a
steady salary by this time.

And we'll need that, you know, if Father dies. Remember, his pension
dies with him."

David looked at his sister, but her eyes avoided his. He suddenly felt
as if an octopus had whipped an arm around his ankle.

"If Father were to die," he said calmly, 'then we certainly would not
keep this house going."

"We have to live some place. Besides, I can always have a piano here."

"I think this house would be too big for one person." And he saw her
eyes again turned towards him, questioning, watchful; he explained, "I
am away for most of the year, Meg. And, frankly, if Father weren't here
I'd take a job of some kind abroad during the holidays. And after I go
down from Oxford I may not even be living in London."

"But I needn't be alone. Florence could live with me here, and then
you'd always have a home to visit when you wanted one."

Had all this been planned in Cornwall, he wondered. He suddenly saw his
personal future being neatly arranged for him, all in the name of
brotherly love and sisterly care and family duty.

"Suppose I die before Father does? You should think of that too if you.
have started calculating results of deaths." His voice was bitter enough
to startle her. Or perhaps it was this new idea which shocked her.

"Wouldn't it be wiser to arrange your life independently of mine?"
"How?" she asked angrily. Tve no money. I wasn't allowed to finish my
course at the College of Music. I am qualified for absolutely nothing."

"You did get some education," he reminded her. He didn't add that it had
been paid for, too, through careful economizing by their mother.

"Why don't you and that woman Rawson look for a job? That is what most
young men and women do."

"Then we'll never have the careers we want."

"How many men do have the careers they really want? Even if a man is
willing to starve in a garret for the sake of his own hopes he can't
inflict that on his wife."

"He doesn't have to marry."

"Mistresses are even more expensive than wives, I believe," David said,
with a smile. His anger had turned to amusement. Margaret imagined that
every one else should be arranged emotionally into the same watertight
compartments as she was. Judging from the shocked look on her face at
this moment, it was even possible she thought that men's emotions were
as easily controlled and managed as women's.

"Don't be crude, David," she said angrily. She left the kitchen
suddenly, and paused at the foot of the narrow stairs to call back, "And
don't call Florence " that woman." She is my friend. So don't think you
can separate us."

"I am not trying to separate you," David said, as he entered the hall.

Lord, he was thinking, wt "All I ask is that you don't inflict her ( "
You are horribly mean about To want me to have any friends, that's it
"If Roger is coming round tonight do your hair. The parting is uneven
him for the last fifteen minutes.

"Roger doesn't bother about such icily.

"He is interested in what I thin] He is only interested in what he would
have liked to say. But he didr knocked on his father's door instead, her
last word all the way upstairs.

As he set out the cards on the sma Margaret was beginning a steady se
argument had not affected her playin regular, brilliant, machine-like in
ace "We need two packs for bezique," '. him gently.

"Sorry. I wasn't thinking," David sai to feel better as he saw the
anticipal This was the game his mother and fa many a long evening.

He shuffled t waited patiently as his father's thil slowly, and the
leisurely game beg; as he listened to the unending st Margaret's talent
was really as first-r tainly he couldn't offer any advice. ^ first- or
second-rate in your work w< find out for yourself.

He let his father gather a fourth a< points. It always acted like a
tonic c win, not too easily yet definitely. P thin face, the skin drawn
so tightly o flesh and red blood to give it shape a were, at this
moment, interested and ness and patience were gone. The we "Four aces,"
his father declared, in t "Good for you." David pushed father's side of
the table. He rose ti evenings were short now. He closed turned damp and
cold at sunset, and rushing feet of the children as they had their last
game before bedtime.

As he lifted his cards once more he remembered other September evenings.

There had always been eyes at windows watching the children as they
played, there had always been the fading trees above the chalk-scrawled
walls. He remembered the fine feeling of mist and gathering darkness,
the cool touch of the night air on his hot cheeks. And when he had come
indoors his mother and father had been finishing their game of bezique,
and upstairs Margaret had been thumping out five-finger exercises. A
profound melancholy stirred in him, and he sat quite motionless.

His father was waiting for him to draw and play.

"Is there anything wrong, David?" he asked.

David listened to the new burst of rhythm from upstairs. Margaret had
abandoned scales for Brahms, but she still played with hard accuracy, as
if the heart were not needed to balance the mind's technical skill.

"I was wondering whether I am deluding myself too," he answered
gloomily.

"What's that, David?" His father had been too engrossed in trying to
collect four kings.

"What did you say there?"

"What if I'm absolutely no good in the Diplomatic?"

His father did not quite follow his argument.

"The Foreign Office needs a variety of men in its service. Inbreeding
only weakens. It needs new blood. I shouldn't worry about that, David."

"I could probably fit into the pattern if I tried hard enough," David
said, 'but that isn't the question. The question is, can I do something
more than just fit into a pattern? Or do I want to have to fit into a
pattern before I can succeed? Or can anyone ever really succeed if he
has to fit into a pattern? That's what worries me."

"The salary is small to begin with," his father went on, following his
own line of thought.

"No more than a schoolteacher's. And generally the young men have some
private means of their own, or some financial backing from their family.

That will be difficult for you perhaps. But it could be managed."

"That isn't what worries me," David said patiently.

"What I am wondering is this: should I be any good? Or should I be just
a polite echo with well-trained brains? Thinking correctly, dressing
correctly, fitting so smoothly into the damned patten that I'd become
incapable of standing outside of it if that were ever necessary?"

His father looked at him.

"It doesn't hurt a man to worr^ about these things," he said gently.
David wouldn't fail, h< assured himself. But David always had these
spasms of self doubt. There hadn't been one major examination yet befon
which David had not always been uncertain and worried. I'n glad he is
that way, his father thought: it keeps him from being overconfident and
self-assertive.

He said, "I never wanted a son who aimed at being rid and famous at the
expense of other men. And I never want et a son who would spend his life
pretending he was big enougl to fill a job, when in his heart he knew he
wasn't as good a: some one else who might have had that job instead of
him But it doesn't hurt a man to aim high as long as he never: loses the
habit of questioning himself. Every now and agaii he should get
thoroughly worried about himself, try to givi himself a few honest
answers no matter how painful the] may be."

When David did not answer his father went on, "I've been < spectator for
years, David, and I've seen more of the garni than those who play it. I
would like you to do well, David Just to make up for me." He paused
there and half smiled "But I would like you to have a career in which
you'd b( doing a really useful job. Mark my words, David, there';
trouble coming."

"Spengler's century of warring Caesarisms," David sai( gloomily.

"And yet, no one is thinking of war. Disarmamen and the Depression is
all we talk about."

"Here, yes. But in some other countries? I saw the last wai begin, and
the side that won the initial advantage had beei preparing for years. It
could pretend it had not, it could tn to throw the blame on others, but
its first success proved i was lying. Because you can't win an advantage
in war unless you are well prepared. Nowadays, to hear Margaret and her
friends talking, you would think that in all nations whc were involved
in the war were equally guilty. That's the civilian way of thinking:
they like to prove the sol diei wrong--once they don't have to depend on
him to says them."

His voice had risen. Suddenly he put down his cards.

"I had four kings actually," he said.

"I just did not manage to declare them. I'm tired, David. I think I'll
go to bed."

David looked at him anxiously. He pushed aside the card- table and
helped his father prepare for bed.

"You make a good nurse," his father said, and patted his arm.

Tt is all a matter of routine," David said. He was thankful that
Margaret had stopped playing the piano at last. There was silence in the
house now, and silence in the streets.

"Something more than that, something more than that," his father
replied.

You could always judge a person's essential nature by the way he nursed,
he thought. The selfish ones, the unselfish ones, the careless, the
callous, the thoughtful, the gentle ones.

"At least, I ought to be a judge of nurses," he added, 'even if my ideas
on politics seem to be all wrong." He smiled, and closed his eyes
wearily.

When David asked if there was anything else he could do there was no
answer except a slow shake of the head and a slow look of thanks.

The door-bell rang when he had settled at the makeshift table in his
room.

The desk, which Margaret had insisted on painting, was still wet to his
touch. ) He heard Margaret's heels strike firmly on the stairs as she
went down to open the door. Then he heard Roger Breen's high-pitched
voice and ineffective laugh. He would have to get rid of some of that
affectation in his accent, and his expensive suits and the comfortable
allowance from his father, before David would ever be able to take his
political opinions at more than mere face value.

Thank God, Margaret had been ready, and there was no fear of Breen's
sauntering into David's room for a chat while he waited. Breen's idea of
a chat was to wander about, picking up a book here, dropping it there,
after an amused glance at a page.

"The trouble with you Socialists," he had once said, subconsciously
justifying his own lack of hard study, 'is that you read too much. You
see everything but the direct means to get your end. Therefore you'll
never get it. Action, not thinking, is what counts." He had a habit of
straightening his tie after pronouncing judgment. He always wore a red
one, to annoy his father (a wealthy manufacturer of boots--a lot of
boots had been needed in the War--who had an accent far removed from his
son's) and to prove to the world that an expensive education at Eton
could produce a champion of the working-man. David had often thought
that it was just this kind of nitwit who did most harm to the workers,
for even the strongest Liberal would become a Tory if he had to argue
with Breen.

Once David had asked icily, "How do you reconcile taking your father's
money with the belief that it's so rotten?" But Breen had his own brand
of lofty answer for that too.

"He is really trying to bribe me, you know. I am showing him that my
opinions cannot be bought."

That encounter had not ended pleasantly. For David had said, "You only
talk this way to win some kind of private battle with your father.

It is so exciting, too, to feel you are in the intellectual vanguard,
isn't it? If you had lived at the beginning of this century, you would
have worn a green carnation in your buttonhole. I meet several of you at
Oxford. I'll believe your attitudes when I see you doing something with
more self-sacrifice attached to it than just sounding off among a lot of
well-dressed, well-fed people. And I'll be more reverent towards your
opinions when you either stop quoting your special newspaper's leading
article, or at least have the honesty to acknowledge the quotation. You
are as spoon-fed as the old boys in their fat leather armchairs in the
club: you just get it out of a different bowl, that's all."

Breen had drawn himself up to his full five feet seven inches, and had
remarked that abuse was the only argument that a reactionary ever
offered.

That was the last time that David had seen him. Margaret was always
ready now when Breen arrived.

David pushed his work aside and walked to the window. He looked down on
the narrow little gardens, stretching out like small fingers from the
back of the row of houses. How could she put up with a man like Breen?
She chose the weirdest friends, as if she enjoyed surrounding herself
with misfits.

Enjoyed? That was hardly the word to apply to Margaret. Apart from her
own world of music, she did not know what enjoyment was. We are limited
by our own experience, David thought.

We are its prisoners.

He turned away from the window, picked up Plato's Republic, in which he
had been working that morning, and opened it. He read the fable about
the Prisoners in the Cave "Damned if I agree altogether," David said
suddenly, still thinking about Margaret.

"We may be prisoners, but many of us choose to be.

Plato did not allow for that."

For there were limits round our minds which sometimes we chose to set,
not because we could not see, but because we preferred not to see. So
far we may be willing to go: we know what to expect. But no farther; for
beyond that boundary we are afraid. Our experience makes cowards of us:
we want its security even if it limits us. We know that many who strike
out beyond this boundary are lost. But not all.

Some- manage it. And when we envy them we forget the risks they took.

We think that their boundaries have always been so broad and limitless.
We forget that they made the effort of pushing them outward. Effort and
risk.

Instead we talk of luck.. To-night, when he had been with his father, he
had said he was worried. But were the reasons he had given the only true
ones? Or wasn't he too much afraid because the limits of Cory's Walk
were' still holding him? If George Fentonstevens were to fail, then his
friends would laugh and say, "Poor old George. Too bad. Better luck next
time, old boy." But if David were to fail there would be no second
chance, for his own belief in himself would be gone. When you came from
Cory's Walk and aimed high, then you had to be so damned good that there
was no possibility of failure. You had to be so damned good that you
didn't need a second chance.

That was why he wouldn't discuss his plans or ambitions with his
friends.

That was why he was always so vague about them. Yes, it was better to
keep quiet about them until you pulled them off. That way the laughs and
the sneers wouldn't be so loud if you failed, and the pity wouldn't be
there, either.

"Well, David didn't manage it," his friends would say, 'but I don't
think he was very serious about it. Never mentioned it very much, did
he?" That was right: keep quiet, never mention it, and then if you
failed it wouldn't seem such a blow. If you aimed high from Cory's Walk
and then fell, you fell a. long way.

Yet--he had told Penny. Strange how he had suddenly blurted it out while
they were leaning over the wall of Edin- burgh Castle, as if he had set
himself to impress her, win her admiration. The mating display, he
thought suddenly. Oh, God, did I really behave like that?

But she had not laughed at him. She had listened, with her large blue
eyes watching him sympathetically as if she really wanted to hear him
talk.

He moved restlessly about the room. Then he sat down at his desk, pushed
the books aside, and lifted a sheet of writing- paper. This was the
third letter this week, Mr. Lorrimer or no Mr. Lorrimer. As he dated it
he glanced at the calendar and said to himself, "Another week, and I
leave for Oxford. And then Penny arrives. Damn that Rawson woman. If it
weren't for her I could have seen Penny every day until term started."

Then he began thinking how he might see Penny on the day she arrived in
London. He would arrange it. He tried to imagine the surprise on her
face when she arrived at King's Cross Station and found him waiting
there to meet her. Then he glanced at his watch, noted the time, stopped
all his wondering and imagining, and began to write her.

It was "Darling Penny' this time, and he didn't even notice how
naturally he had written it.

Chapter Fourteen.

PENNY IN LONDON.

The notice-board, three-porters and a ticket-inspector had all agreed
that the train from Edinburgh would arrive at this platform in five
minutes.

David was still only half persuaded. He watched the giant hand of the
station clock as it jerked eagerly to each new minute, and debated with
himself whether he should stand at the gate to the platform or whether
he should use the platform ticket which he had bought. He decided to use
it, and yet keep near enough the gate so he could not possibly miss her.
He hadn't thought of that possibility until he had actually arrived at
the station.

The notice-board, three porters, and ticket-inspector had been right
after all. The train was pulling in proudly, exactly on time. And
suddenly the deserted platform was filled with people. The crowd was
much bigger than he had ever imagined it would be, and his nervousness
returned. It would be easy to miss her after all in this millrace. He
didn't even know what clothes she would be wearing, and she didn't know
he was going to be in London. He had liked the idea of a surprise. Damn'
fool, he thought now.

And then, searching the hurrying crowd with an anxious eye and seeing
nothing but tall thin men and small thin men and fat men and old women
and young women with young men and children dragging at their mothers'
arms and a girl who looked like Penny but wasn't, he said savagely,
"Anticlimax."

"I beg your pardon?" a man beside him turned to say.

David looked at him bitterly.

"Sorry," the man said in embarrassment, and moved away.

Hell, David thought, you've taken your eyes off the crowd. You've missed
her, damn you.

And then he saw her.

There was a man with her, too, a white-haired man dressed in well-cut
navy blue, carrying a small suitcase which obviously did not belong to
him. David walked over so that he would stand in their path. Penny was
happy. Her eyes were dancing as she looked at every one around her: she
was missing no details on the crowded platform as she listened to her
companion. David found himself smiling.

"Well, London, here I am," she seemed to be saying. And he wasn't the
only one who thought she was beautiful, either. These passing glances
from surrounding males said, "M'w/ Nice 1' She saw him suddenly, stared
blankly, halted, and then, without a word of warning to her companion,
ran forward to meet him. *0h, David!" she said. And there they were,
holding each other's hands, gripping them, not shaking them.

"Well," the white-haired man said, as he reached them, "I'm glad to see
some one did meet you. Yours, I think," he added, with a broad smile, as
he handed the, suitcase over to David.

Penny remembered her manners.

"Thank you so much for making the journey so pleasant."

"Not at all, not at all. The pleasure was mine." He raised his hat
neatly and left them, still smiling, to merge into the stream of people
flowing slowly through the narrow gate.

"Who on earth was that?" David said, as they too joined the queue.

"A captain. Navy. He has just been retired. He is sweet, isn't he?"

"Oh, a friend of your family," David suggested.

"No. I don't even know his name. I met him at one of those small tables
in the restaurant car. You just can't sit opposite some one all through
four courses, concentrating or food like a cow, can you? And after I
spilled some salt and threw it over my left shoulder he laughed. And
then, o; course, we talked."

"Penny, you are He didn't finish the sentence, bu smiled instead and
shook his head slowly. He took her am and led her out of the station.
Penny was the kind of gir whose suitcase was carried for her, whose arm
was held a! she crossed a street. And the strange thing was that you fel
she probably was quite capable of looking after herself; sh< had enough
feminine sense, however, to know when to droi her independence.

"You know," David said, still smiling, 'you really shouldn' talk to
strangers."

"Don't yout She laughed. Then she halted and drew in i deep breath of
air.

"London!" she said.

"It smells and sound; so good!"

"Only Londoners are supposed to think that. But' he triec to make his
voice sound more severe 'men are different They can talk to strangers
without complications. I bet i wasn't the salt incident that made him
talk, either.

That wa; merely the first excuse he could find."

Penny laughed again, and said, "David, this is the mos wonderful
surprise. Did you come up all the way from Oxford?"

"No, I just happened to be walking past this station, and : tripped over
some salt and found myself talking to a beautiful blonde, and when I
recovered I was wandering on thi platform ready to challenge the whole
blasted Fleet." Hi looked down at the suitcase he was carrying.

"And am I to b( called " sweet" too?" "No," Penny said decidedly.

"You are much much nice than sweet." And then her colour deepened, and
she pretendec to be interested in the long row of crawling traffic.

"Where's the rest of your luggage?" David asked, as hi managed to get a
taxi.

"The trunks were all sent on in advance."

"Trunks? You sound as if you had come to stay."

"Oh, I brought a lot of things from my room at home. : got attached to
them, you see."

She settled back in the taxi. She had never been happier ii her life,
she thought. She studied David's face, believing hi didn't notice it, as
he gave the driver her address. David had come especially to meet her.

Everything was wonderful: London and the smell of petrol and the
multitude of noises, the swarming traffic and this wheezing taxicab and
its red- nosed, bemufflered driver, with his draggling mustache and
drooping mouth and his shoulders hunched over the wheel. And David.

"We'll dump your suitcase at your address," David was saying.

"And then we'll have dinner at a little place I know of, and afterwards
we'll take in a theatre. How's that?"

"Marvelous." Everything was marvelous.

"But shall't I have to report or something at this women's residence? It
is a terrifying name for it, isn't it?" She wrinkled her nose in
disgust.

"You can do that to-morrow, as if you had arrived by a late train
to-day. I know these institutions, anyway. You just sit around waiting
anxiously, and it is only afterwards that you realize that things just
arrange themselves anyway, so why all the worry?"

"I wish I could treat it so casually. I'm sort of nervous inside, David.
I keep trying to imagine what it will be like."

"It is a place for women run by women, so you'll have chintz and dainty
salads and rice puddings and gay girlish laughter all around you. You'll
find it pretty awful, I expect. What on earth made you take a room
there?"

"Father and Mother. They only let me come to London on the understanding
that I'd stay at this place. They think it is " safe"!

And because it is expensive it must be good!" She laughed.

"It is funny how one has to keep compromising in life, isn't it? I
wanted a room of my own. I've got it, but not just the way I wanted it.

Still'--she looked out of the taxi window, saw that the numbers in Gower
Street were going by rapidly--'it may not be so bad. She stared
doubtfully at the row of four houses which had been converted into one
building, before which the cab had drawn up. Like the other houses in
this part of the street, it had a basement surrounded by iron railings,
and a bridge of steps over the deep basement area to the front-door on
the ground floor. There were three stories of uniform windows above
that, and attic windows set into the steep-sloping roof with its lines
of chimney-pots. Three of the doorways had been blocked up, but the
fourth was painted a bright green. A large polished, brass name-plate
informed the ignorant that it was baker house.

"I'll wait in the cab for you. Penny," David said, as he deposited the
suitcase in the hand of a stiffly starched maid with a measuring eye.
Penny nodded, and stepped into the large, dark hall. The door was shut
firmly in his face.

When she came out at last he could sense her disappointment. She greeted
him with too determined cheerfulness.

"Well, did they show you your cell?" he asked.

She smiled then.

"No chintz at least," she reported. Just faded green baize. Walls
distempered at least five years ago in a safe cream colour.

"And the trunks have arrived." With two of them standing in her
ten-by-eight-foot room, there wasn't an inch of free space. I'll have to
unpack with my feet up on my bed, she thought. One trunk probably
wouldn't need to be unpacked.

"I've a window too," she said.

"One of those up there on the top floor." "The very top floor?" David
asked. The attic would be cold in winter, hot in summer.

"Do they use the attic too?" "They use every inch," Penny said.

"There was another room vacant on a lower floor, but it would cost two
guineas a week more."

She looked at him quizzically.

"It isn't only the Scots who count every penny, seemingly."

David refused to be side-tracked.

"Look," he said, 'this wasn't exactly what your parents planned, was
it?"

"Hardly." Not at three and a half guineas a week.

"Anyway," she said, "I am in London."

"And it is now my turn to be guide." That was a good enough excuse to
take her thoughts away from Baker House. The cab had left Bloomsbury,
and turned down Tottenham Court Road. Furniture shops, he explained.

Then Charing Cross Road. Second-hand books. But as Penny looked
interested he added hastily that it wasn't a particularly pleasant place
to walk through. And here was Shaftesbury Avenue: gallery queues.

"You make it all sound so much simpler than it looks," Penny said.

"I

suppose if we were to pass the Tower you'd just point an arm and say,
"Rolling heads." And Trafalgar Square would be "Lions."

"You see, it is quite simple. London is the one city you can remember by
Pelmanism. Here is Piccadilly Circus. Now guess what?"

Eros?"

He paid off the cab.

"Let's visit him," he said. He took her arm to guide her through the
swooping traffic towards the little island in the centre, where Eros
balanced on one leg as he reached forward to pluck an invisible rose out
of the air.

Below his statue the flower-girls strewed their sweet violets. Like the
ancient sibyls that they were, they guarded their mysteries impassively
until David's offering clinked into one of their capacious pockets. Then
the omens were good, it seemed: Penny became a pretty lady and David was
God- blessed.

They came to the restaurant he had chosen. Dusk was beginning, and the
lights in the streets were going on. Penny had recovered her first
enthusiasm. There was a gaiety in her smile that caught the eye.

Several men and women looked at her sharply.

"That's the fifth man we've passed who wishes I would drop dead," David
said.

"Here's the place. We'll have Hungarian music to help us digest the
goulash."

Penny halted. A little place I know of  ... "Oh, David," she said.

"Really  ...  It looks awfully expensive." "It isn't," David said
cheerfully, as he caught her arm and guided her through the doorway.

"Come on, don't thwart me. I'm a dangerous man when I'm thwarted. I fall
down and have fits. Imagine me, reeling, writhing, and fainting in coils
in Lower Regent Street."

She smiled at that, and offered no further resistance.

"Well," he said, when they had settled themselves at a comfortable table
for two, and he had ordered, 'this is slightly better than a tavern in
an Edinburgh side-street, isn't it?"

"I like it," she admitted.

"But a man probably enjoys himself more in the kind of place where we
lunched in Edin- burgh. Doesn't he?"

He watched her, wondering at her good sense. And tact too: when she had
seen that he was set on this place she had made no further objections,
but had come in here looking happy, charming, and absolutely delighted
with his choice.

"I find you very unsettling," he said. Her eyes were puzzled. And blue,
so very blue above the simple grey dress. Her coat had been thrown back
over her chair, and she was leaning forward slightly with her arms
resting on the table. The line of her shoulder was hidden and yet
revealed by the well-cut wool dress. Her hair was smoothly brushed, and
its warm red lights gleamed under the small piece of dark blue felt,
curiously crushed into a pretence of a hat, which was tilted just enough
over her right eye.

"I believe," he said slowly, 'that you would be just as charming if I
had taken you to a little cafe."

"That could be fun too. If one were enjoying oneself, that is." She
pretended to look at a group at another table, picked up the bunch of
violets which lay beside her handbag and held them to her face.

"No scent, I'm afraid," he said.

"They look too perfect. You can't get everything, it seems." His eyes
caught hers, and held them.

"Only sometimes," he added, his voice now quite serious, desperately
sincere.

Only sometimes, perhaps . by the most miraculous good fortune.

But an efficient waiter chose this moment to serve them, with much
darting and hovering, like an inquisitive hummingbird. Penny, with a
smile in her eyes as she watched David's face, began to talk of things
to which even a waiter might listen. Her father had won a Mixed Doubles
tournament at North Berwick, and then spent two days in bed recovering.
Much to his annoyance.

Moira was still showing signs of strain from three weeks of
International Students' meetings, and she was receiving constant letters
from some one who had gone back to Italy. This had been very useful,
really, in diverting the family's interest from Penny's own
correspondence. Betty was hockey captain of the second team at school
this year, and so she had not so much time for her novel. She had
decided, anyway, after hearing a visiting missionary's sermon in church
one Sunday, to transfer its scene to Madagascar. She was now searching
for a new title before she could go on writing. Penny's suggestion. With
Rod, Pole, and Perch in Deepest Africa, had not been too well received.
Mrs. Lorrimer had become the President of the new Rambling for Health
Club (which hoped to persuade girls from shops and factories to spend
Sundays on their feet too); Treasurer of the Committee to set up Clubs
for Bonnier Bairns (Penny could not convince Mrs. Lorrimer that its
title had an ominous ring, likely to frighten away literally minded
mothers); and a member of a Citizens' League for the Preservation and
Protection of Ruins.

"The idea," Penny said determinedly, in spite of the waiter, as he
fussed over their coffee-cups and emptied the ashtray for the third
time, 'seems to be that Ruins should look like Ruins without being
Ruins. They are all to be cemented up efficiently so that they will stop
falling down, but they still must not look like anything except a Ruin.
That would ruin the Ruins."

Then, from discussing ruins, they turned to elder statesmen, which, in
the condition of the world in 1932, was quite a logical development for
such conversation.

"I'll pay this, and then perhaps we shall get some peace," David said,
as the bill was unostentatiously presented. Steep, he thought, as he
glanced at it, but fortunately he had come well prepared: he had managed
to save some money in the last six weeks by resisting most amusements.
He gave Penny a reassuring smile.

"And," he said firmly to the waiter, 'we shall take half an hour over
our coffee, and we don't need any more ashtrays emptied. We like them as
they are. Is that quite clear?"

It may have been the tip or the belligerent look which had suddenly
appeared in David's eye, but at any rate the waiter removed himself to
another table.

"Well!" David said, as he lit a cigarette with enjoyment. He looked at
her with pleasure.

"I like that colour of grey. And I like that hat or whatever you call
it."

"What else could you call it?" She was delighted. She had insisted on
buying this hat, in spite of her mother's horror. She had won the
argument by saying she could always travel without a hat to London and
buy one there.

"I know what's different now," David said suddenly.

"You are wearing earrings. And lipstick."

"Then they can't be as obvious as I feel," Penny said, 'or you would
have noticed them at once." She touched the small pearl studs in her
ears to make certain that they were still secure.

"My gesture of independence," she added, with a laugh.

"I put them on just as the train was crossing the Border."

"Gauguin setting out for Tahiti?" David suggested.

"And did you put them on before or after lunch?"

"Before." And then she remembered.

"David! Really, he was the nicest Naval officer imaginable 1' " I am
imagining hard," David said. Strange, he thought how natural, how
pleasant all this is: no irritation, no sens< of being criticized or of
criticizing, only this deep feeling of ease and contentment.

"How many times in our life have w< sat together like this, talked and
laughed together?" he askec suddenly.

She didn't answer him, but her eyes met his.

"Or am I talking nonsense?" he asked, with a good pretence of lightness
in his voice.

"Must be this music bringing out m^ gipsy blood." There he was, already
backing away from the serious into the facetious, afraid of saying too
much in cas< she would be amused or pitying or polite. He waited for her
answer, no doubt sweetly phrased so as not to hurt him, and dreaded it.
He even forced a smile.

Everything, he suddenly realized, depended on this answer.

She said in a low voice, "It isn't nonsense, David."

Watching her eyes, he believed her. He touched her hand The waiter drew
near once more: there were still other) tips to be earned this evening.

"Let's go," David said quickly, and helped her with her coat The moment
was lost. She was talking to him in he) natural voice again; he was
being equally matter-of-fact and composed as they passed the crowding
tables and at lasi came into the street.

"We had them specially arranged for you," he said, as the^ stood for a
moment looking at the clear stars which shone ir the crisp autumn sky.

"Now what about a theatre?"

"Whatever you like," she said. She was still looking at the stars.

"No, it is what you want. Something serious or something gay?"

"Might we walk, first of all?" she asked.

"It is a heavenly night, and I've been sitting in a train practically
all day. Anc I never have walked about a city at night. It would be fun
Besides," she smiled up at him as they fell into step, "I've hac a
lovely time already. You are spoiling me, you know." It was awfully
expensive, she thought: he can't possibly afford to spend so much money
on me as all that in one night.

"Let me worry about that," he said.

"Penny, you are the strangest girl."

That was what her mother often said, but David was noi saying it in her
mother's way. He made it sound like a compliment.

She said in embarrassment, "I ought to worry about it, David. Because
you give too much." She thought of this journey to meet her as she
looked down at the violets which she carried.

"No one ever told me that before," he said, which was true enough. He
had never met any attractive girls who had not accepted everything quite
calmly as if it were their due. And then, still thinking over her words,
he began to worry. Had she meant she didn't want so much from him,
didn't want to accept anything more than she was willing to return?

Penny was doing her own share of wondering. On how many girls had he
spent so much thought and time and money as he had spent on her to-day?
And why should she use the past tense? How many girls now, of which she
was one?

Men were so easy about that sort of thing. All they had to say to a girl
if they liked her was, "Are you free on Friday? Good. Let's say seven
o'clock." But no woman, however much she liked a man, could say,

"Are you free on Friday? Good. Let's say seven o'clock." Penny was
suddenly miserable. She was too proud, she admitted, to take any
pleasure in being one of several girls. But, most of all, she was
probably being a serious fool: men wrote letters to women, asked them
out; and it generally meant little more than a diversion, an amusing way
to escape from boredom.

She wondered, then, why she had not thought of this before, why she
should ever have been so confident that David was different. Because she
had wanted to believe that? She still wanted to believe it.

They walked on in silence, each aware of it, each worrying that it
confirmed their fears. There were few people in this district at this
hour. Inside the clubs, impersonal in their remote dignity, men digested
their leisurely dinner with no women to hurry them away from their port.
The broad, immaculate street, the solid buildings, the richly lighted
rooms behind the screened windows, all culminated in the feeling of
expensive restraint.

David quickened his pace unconsciously.

"I'm sorry," he said, as her ankle twisted and he steadied her by the
arm.

"I've been walking too quickly."

"No."

He looked at her, wondering what he had done to frighten her away from
him again. He halted beside one of the large monuments which decorated
Waterloo Place. In front of them were the broad steps which led down to
the Mall, with its green park and its spaced trees, now a mass of black
and blacker shadows. Beyond the grass and trees were the shapes of dark
buildings cutting into the night sky, turning the modern city into a
stage setting for a medieval play; mounting walls, turrets, spires; and
then the moon-like face of Big Ben rising high above its tall tower's
solid shadow.

To the south, across the river, rose the glow from the clustering lights
of unseen streets and crowding houses, a living background to these dark
shapes of stone which guarded them so coldly.

"Penny," he said, "Penny, look at me. What's wrong?" "Nothing," she
said, and smiled to prove it.

"Penny," he said, and grasped her arm.

"Look, I know this may sound madness, but it isn't madness to me. I'd
rather blurt everything out right now, even if I do frighten you off,
and for good.

At least I'll know where I stand. You must know that there's only one
reason why I came to meet you this afternoon; the same reason why I am
going to go on seeing you whenever I can. Any objections to that idea?"

He watched the pretended smile fade, her eyes avoiding his no longer.

For a moment she stood like that, unmoving, expressionless. And then a
gentle curve came back to her lips. He bent down suddenly and kissed
them.

As he drew back, as startled as she was, he saw from her eyes that there
was no further reason needed, no reason even now wanted. He kissed her
again, more slowly, deliberately, and yet with no sense of calculation.
It seemed to him that he had never made a more natural gesture in all
his life. Then he heard footsteps near them, and a woman's high thin
voice saying, "Really!" He looked round angrily, to see an expensively
dressed back walking quickly away from them, with her companion hurrying
on his short legs to catch up with her retreat.

Damn her, he thought savagely, and looked anxiously at Penny. But Penny
was smiling.

"David," she said, and reached up to kiss him lightly on his cheek.

He caught her hand as they laughed, and they ran down the flight of
broad, shallow steps into the Mall.

Under the plane-trees, walking arm-in-arm with th sir hands clasped as if
to double their hold on each other, he said, "I

am sorry. Penny.. I should have waited until we had crossed over here,
where it is less public. Or, at least," as he looked round and saw the
other couples strolling arm-in-arm or sitting together on the seats
which edged St. James's Park, 'or, at least, not quite so well lighted."
Damn that woman, he thought again, and her shocked voice pulling
everything down to the level of her own mind.

"I was sorry for her," Penny said.

"I saw her face, you know. It looked as if it could do with some
kissing."

He laughed, and his anger was gone. He had been afraid, not for what the
woman had thought, but of the effect of her open scorn on Penny.

It could have pushed her right back into that tight wall of convention
which had encircled her for so many years. And yet he could be thankful
too to that tight wall. He had learned that when he kissed her. Her
whole body had stiffened, and her lips had been afraid for a fraction of
the first moment.

He would never need to wonder, when she kissed him, who had taught her
so well.

Penny did not appear to notice the couples sitting so closely together,
so motionless, as if they were in a drugged dream, but her pace
quickened slightly, and she started as a police- man's light flickered
on and then off.

For a brief minute the light focused on a bewildered young man and
woman, looking up in annoyance and sudden worry. But the policeman must
have approved of them, for he left them sitting there. Another couple
was not so lucky. David noticed the woman's face, with the pretty,
moronic look of the night wanderer. He increased their pace still more.

"Too many people about," he said lightly, and hid his disappointment in
a complicated description of his new digs at Oxford. This took them
through Admiralty Arch into Charing Cross.

T do believe you are more conventional than I am!" Penny said, as she
looked back over her shoulder at the comparative peace of the Mall.

"All I am looking for is a quiet spot where we can talk without having
to shut our ears to at least five-conversations going on around us." He
looked wryly at the busy traffic. "And this Bedlam isn't much help,
either. Let's cut down Whitehall to the river. We may find some peace
there. Or are you tired? We are too late now for a theatre. But what
about the flicks? Or some place with music?"

"Not to-night, David. I have to be careful about the time, you see. We
are all locked up for the night in Baker House at eleven-thirty. That
is, if we get permission. Or else we must be in by nine o'clock. They
insist on our beauty sleep, it seems." She pretended to be amused at the
idea, but it still rankled.

"Besides," she went on, 'we couldn't hear ourselves think in a
night-club, either."

True enough, David thought. Hell, why should it be made so difficult for
two people to be alone with each other? Waiters, women with raised
eyebrows, policemen with torches, couples jammed two or even three to a
bench along the Mall, no talking in theatres or cinemas, crowded tables
and non-stop bands in night-clubs and restaurants.

What did a man with little money do if he didn't want to share his girl
with a hundred or a thousand other people?

Penny waited for his answer, but when it didn't come she said gently,
"I'm sorry, David. I ruined all your plans for this evening. But I did
want a walk. And I still do." She looked round at the changing shapes of
silent buildings, and then towards the sky, dark, cool, and clean.

"Don't you like it too?"

He answered her this time by smiling, by taking her arm again, even if
they were in an austerely public street. His feeling of having arranged
things so badly disappeared; he relaxed and felt perfectly content.

And Penny, conscious of his arm through hers, conscious of the smile on
his face, was happy too. Her feet almost danced over the pavement.

Her heart was singing. And in her joy she gave her pity generously to
all the women she passed, who could not have David walking beside them.

The Embankment and gardens, south of Westminster, were almost deserted
at this hour. The river, swollen by the high September tides, was
running smoothly and gently, mocking the sandbags propped up against the
Embankment walls at their weaker points. The bright lights of the
bridges were strung above the dark water, a glittering necklace of lamps
displayed against velvet as black as that of any jeweller's calculated
window. Occasional tugs and barges moved in slow, steady progress; if it
were not for the reflections of the lights on the water, broken and
lengthened as they glanced over the uneven surface of its deep currents,
you might not have guessed the strength of the river which held the
boats in constant struggle. The stars were clear and high. Their
imitators, evenly spaced along the city streets, had distracted your
eyes from the real beauty of the night sky. But here, above the dark
water, the sky was dominant again. The individual noises of a great city
merged with each other into the steady hum of some giant dynamo, into a
background of droning power against which you could hear the gentle
insistent rhythm of the lapping water below your feet. Here, on the
Embankment, with its feeling of distance from noise and light, was a
sense of escape from the machine of living.

They reached Gower Street ten minutes before Baker House barred its door
for the night. So they walked slowly round the quiet Bloomsbury square
which lay behind Gower Street, unwilling to leave each other a minute
before they must.

"When am I going to see you again?" David asked.

"The difficulty is," he explained, "I am as tied down by rules and
regulations as you are.

I can come up for an evening, provided I catch the Flying Fornic--the
train that gets me back to Oxford in time before the gates are locked.
The colleges are all locked up by twelve, you see. After then you climb
over the wall in a dark patch where you won't be spotted easily."

Penny looked at him worriedly.

"What about tonight?"

"Term hasn't begun yet, and I'm in digs with no more walls to climb, and
my landlady seems to be a decent sort. Only, when term does start she
will have to stick to the rules or lose her licence."

"You mean she has got to see that you are safely inside her house?"

"Or she would not be allowed a licence to rent her rooms to
undergraduates.

There is nothing like the economic screw to tighten up the good old
moral standards."

"What happens if you break the rules?" It seemed all so fantastic
somehow.

The undergraduates looked like men; they talked like men.

Was something wrong with them that they couldn't be treated like men?

"You are up on the carpet before the Dean of your college. You can be
gated--which is a sort of confined to barracks-- for a week or so, or
you can be fined. If you collect one interview too many with the Dean
you can be sent down. Permanently if the Dean's patience has worn out."

"Lord, David! Will you be able to catch the next train?"

"I'll make it. Don't worry. Penny." He smiled at her anxiety, but he was
ridiculously pleased by it.

"I only told you all this you see. We are all locked up for the night in
Bi eleven-thirty. That is, if we get permission. Or be in by nine
o'clock. They insist on our be; seems." She pretended to be amused at
the ide rankled.

"Besides," she went on, 'we couldn't b think in a night-club, either."

True enough, David thought. Hell, why shoul so difficult for two people
to be alone with Waiters, women with raised eyebrows, pol torches,
couples jammed two or even three to a the Mall, no talking in theatres
or cinemas, cr and non-stop bands in night-clubs and restaur ai a man
with little money do if he didn't want to with a hundred or a thousand
other people?

Penny waited for his answer, but when it die said gently, "I'm sorry,
David. I ruined all your evening. But I did want a walk. And I still do
round at the changing shapes of silent buildir towards the sky, dark,
cool, and clean.

"Don't yo He answered her this time by smiling, by ta again, even if
they were in an austerely publ feeling of having arranged things so
badly dis relaxed and felt perfectly content.

And Penny, conscious of his arm through hi of the smile on his face, was
happy too. He danced over the pavement. Her heart was singin joy she
gave her pity generously to all the worm who could not have David
walking beside them.

The Embankment and gardens, south of West almost deserted at this hour.
The river, swollei September tides, was running smoothly and ge the
sandbags propped up against the Embank] their weaker points. The bright
lights of the strung above the dark water, a glittering neck displayed
against velvet as black as that of calculated window.

Occasional tugs and bar^ slow, steady progress; if it were not for the
refl lights on the water, broken and lengthened as over the uneven
surface of its deep currents, y have guessed the strength of the river
which hell constant struggle. The stars were clear and high tors, evenly
spaced along the city streets, had d eyes from the real beauty of the
night sky. But here, above the dark water, the sky was dominant again.
The individual noises of a great city merged with each other into the
steady hum of some giant dynamo, into a background of droning power
against which you could hear the gentle insistent rhythm of the lapping
water below your feet. Here, on the Embankment, with its feeling of
distance from noise and light, was a sense of escape from the machine of
living.

They reached Gower Street ten minutes before Baker House barred its door
for the night. So they walked slowly round the quiet Bloomsbury square
which lay behind Gower Street, unwilling to leave each other a minute
before they must.

"When am I going to see you again?" David asked.

"The difficulty is," he explained, "I am as tied down by rules and
regulations as you are.

I can come up for an evening, provided I catch the Flying Fomic--the
train that gets me back to Oxford in time before the gates are locked.
The colleges are all locked up by twelve, you see. After then you climb
over the wall in a dark patch where you won't be spotted easily."

Penny looked at him worriedly.

"What about tonight?"

"Term hasn't begun yet, and I'm in digs with no more walls to climb, and
my landlady seems to be a decent sort. Only, when term does start she
will have to stick to the rules or lose her licence."

"You mean she has got to see that you are safely inside her house?"

"Or she would not be allowed a licence to rent her rooms to
undergraduates.

There is nothing like the economic screw to tighten up the good old
moral standards."

"What happens if you break the rules?" It seemed all so fantastic
somehow.

The undergraduates looked like men; they talked like men.

Was something wrong with them that they couldn't be treated like men?

"You are up on the carpet before the Dean of your college. You can be
gated--which is a sort of confined to barracks-- for a week or so, or
you can be fined. If you collect one interview too many with the Dean
you can be sent down. Permanently if the Dean's patience has worn out."

"Lord, David Will you be able to catch the next train?"

"I'll make it. Don't worry. Penny." He smiled at her anxiety, but he was
ridiculously pleased by it.

"I only told you all this so th; Sunda Is it a Pen He!" Da\ bidding
happy two: again.

"Bet tow arc She for thi closed, He looked to spe which At las turned
away then, smiling. He began to walk quickly towards Tottenham Court
Road. He glanced at his watch again, and he began to run.

Chapter Fifteen.

NEW PERSPECTIVE.

By February the strangeness of Penny's new life in London had settled
into the appearance of routine. It seemed simple enough on the surface,
falling into three neat, separate worlds: there was David, there was her
work at the Slade, there was the group of new friends and acquaintances.
But it was David's world round which the other two circled.

At Christmas, in Edinburgh, she had tried to introduce the subject of
David.

But the family somehow had always so much totell her about Moira's
great social success this winter, about all the fun that Penny was
missing by living in London, that she had stopped trying.

It was discouraging to start talking about an interesting evening at
Sadler's Wells with her friend Lillian Marston, when Moira would cut in
with long descriptions of three plays she had seen in Edin- burgh that
winter. Or, when she mentioned lunch with David at the Cafe Royal, her
mother would start talking about the Charity Ball which Penny would have
so enjoyed if she could have been there: Moira had met the most charming
young men. So after a while Penny did not mention London or her life
there, and the family did not even seem to notice. They all agreed that
it had been a very enjoyable Christmas, and how Penelope must be missing
Edinburgh really, although she had tried to be very brave about it, and
once or twice it had to be admitted had given herself little airs about
London. Giving oneself airs, Mrs. Lorrimer had said, was a thing she
would not tolerate, not for one moment. Secretly she was inclined to
worry about the number of letters which Penelope had received that
Christmas and about the much too casual way in which David Bosworth had
been mentioned. Still, better to cut off all conversation about David
Bosworth and show that he was of no importance at all. Mrs. Lorrimer was
of the school of thought which finnl believed that if you didn't talk
about the nasty pain it would- just go away.

And so Penny returned to London after the New Yea: convinced that as
long as she appeared to be the same girl it voice, face, health, and
mannerisms she would always be considered the same. But there had been
changes within changf too. Strangely enough, the things she had been
most assure about in September--her work at the Slade, for instance were
those that had caused her the greatest worry this winter And what she
had worried about in September had becomi completely decided by January:
once the major change o: Penny-without-David into Penny-with-David had
been made it had become a steady progression of excitement and joy, i
climbing graph of happiness curving up into infinity.

But her work at the Slade had been otherwise: here then had been changes
within change with a vengeance. The class rooms, the wandering corridors
of University College t( which the Slade was attached, the library and
cafeteria, well no longer bewildering places where the newcomer felt
ver] much alone and very lost. The art students no longer seemec the
forbidding group of genius into which the first-year mar could never
penetrate. Now she knew that at least three quarters of them were either
young men and women whosf talents, if they learned and worked hard
enough, would sec un them a job in teaching, or in design, or in
illustrating; or thel were rather decorative young things who, judging
by the minimum of work which they did and the number of parties which
they attended, were only marking time aesthetically until they married.
The rest of the students were those deter mined few whose whole lives,
for better or for worse, well going to be linked permanently to pure
art.

Most of the students were young. All of them disparagec their own work
publicly, privately hoped for recognition talked acidly of those who had
become famous, and hid thei) seriousness under a cloak of superficial
lightheartedness. the majority of them calculated the cost of their
lunches at the cafeteria down to the saving of fourpence on the sweet
(fiv< fourpences would buy a seat in the gods for a new play; three
fourpences would take you into one of the less fashion able cinemas),
and had a matter-of-fact knowledge of the last inch to which their
narrow budgets might be extended In fact, there was nothing very much to
distinguish them from the other students at University College except
either the women's conscious hair-styles (a good deal of brushing and
sleeking down of hair to turn them into medieval pageboys) or the
wandering about the quadrangle in oil-stained smocks. And that was
counted slightly too much on the local- colour side, like the younger
medical students who always appeared from the hospital across the road
in short white jackets with stethoscopes bulging their pockets.

Even her teachers, who had at first seemed so formidable, so distant on
their Olympian heights, lost their unapproachable air. They were good
artists who could either be good or bad teachers. When they seemed
withdrawn and silent that did not mean they were communicating with
their souls in abstract patterns. It was much more likely that they were
partly depressed about their own work, interrupted by teaching; partly
thoughtful about the flashes of intelligence or the abyss of banality
which their pupils could display; and partly worried about the mortgage
on their home, the baby's persistent bronchitis, the last bank
statement.

In fact. Penny learned, only a very few of the teachers or students
could afford the luxury of striking romantic attitudes. Work was quite
as urgent as in her father's law office; only, here, because people had
chosen a career whose success would rarely be measured in money, but
rather in doing as well as possible in what they liked to do, there was
less feeling of being bound to a machine and more sense of freedom in
behaviour and ideas. Money was counted as something useful, but it was
always the means to the end, the means of being free enough economically
to devote oneself entirely to painting or sculpture, and never an end in
itself.

Penny began to learn these things in October, and she began to learn
about her own work too, but hardly in the way she had imagined. After
the first weeks of loneliness, shyness, and disturbing fears over her
probable inadequacy she settled down to prove to herself that she was
not an object for pity. It turned out to be an extremely painful
process.

For after some weeks of proving that her work was not so bad after all,
she found that nothing she was painting pleased her. Yet it was still
the same kind of work, developed of course, which she had done last
year. It had not changed. But it did not please her any more. It was
then that she realized that she had changed, that her work had not, and
that wa: the whole trouble. Somewhere, somehow, she had adoptei ideas
and little tricks in painting which had seemed to maki her work
promising. Now she was finding that these ideas these tricks, had
carried her as far as they ever would.

Then was no possibility of growth in them. That was a very upsetting
admission to make. Still more upsetting was the decision to start almost
at thi beginning again, to change her conception of painting, to givi up
much of what had once given her most pride. At first i was
disheartening. She had abandoned ideas which, even i they had turned out
to be limited, were certainly as good a any of those held by the average
students. And it seemed a if she had found nothing to replace them. Then
gradually something began to develop. Symington, the teacher whom she
respected most (his owl work was excellent, and, strangely enough, was
admired no only by his fellow-artists and pupils, but also by the
public) was an interested observer of all this.

Because he was a gooc teacher as well as a. good painter he did not
upset her witt advice, but waited until she was ready to come and ask
fo: it.

"So you have cleared all the furniture out of the room?" hi said, with a
smile, and that was the only reference he madi about the battle that had
taken her twelve full weeks. But hi gave her a good deal of help--more
than he usually gave t( women students.

By February she was happy in her work again, althougl she knew she was
only at the very beginning. And she knew that she had still to find out
whether it would be as good a- she wanted it to be; and that gave her
just enough uncertainty to keep her from the fault of over-confidence,
so that he] mind was open and willing to learn.

She would have been both pleased and amazed if she hac known that
Symington had already picked her out as gooc material with more than
average possibilities. And she woulc have been more than amazed to hear
his comment on her to one of his colleagues.

"The pity of it is, she will marry. The; no more painting. As a teacher
I find it deplorable," Syming ton had finished, 'but as a man I find it
highly satisfactory. But then, some ten years ago, he had married one of
hi; prettiest pupils, whose painting had since been confined t( funny
drawings for four picture-loving children. His colleague, who was
listening to this peculiarly masculine remark, had always been able to
disprove most of Symington's little philosophies.

But that day his arguing power had been weakened, for his mistress (who
had never given up her career) had just left him, on the charge that he
was 'smothering her individuality."

Penny might have been amazed and indignant, but it was perfectly true
that, although she still took her work with complete seriousness, she
had begun to think less and less of winning a scholarship to study in
Rome. Or to live anywhere abroad which would separate her from David.

And it was not only her future ambitions which David had altered.

There was this strange reaction in making new friends. After the first
week, when the students had eyed one another, hesitated, circled vaguely
around, given offhand smiles, tried out a few casual remarks, and then
suddenly had begun to form the little groups which ate together, went to
concerts and theatres together, walked and talked together, Penny had
had her share of masculine interest. There would be some one who would
drift over towards her place in the classroom and look at her work and
begin talking. Or there would be an oblique approach to the lunch-table
where she sat. Or accidental meetings at the College gates which
happened too regularly. She was flattered, for vanity, catlike, cannot
resist purring when it is stroked.

But that didn't let her fall into the delusion that she should accept
any invitations 'just to be kind," as so many of the other girls looked
at it.

What kindness was there in letting a man waste an evening of his life on
you?

For that was the trouble: she liked several of the men, and some were
attractive, but none of them raised more than a friendly smile in her,
and none gave her what David gave her. That was the trouble: she would
always make that comparison now.

Among the women there were those who sought out her company, and she
accepted some of them more readily. They were safer. And yet, even with
them, it seemed as if she couldn't give them the same full interest that
she would have given them a year ago. It was as if David used up so much
of her thoughts and her emotions that there was little left to share out
among others.

In Edinburgh she had made friends easily. But now she was neglecting
them too. She forgot to write, and then would remember that with sudden
attacks of remorse which were intense but brief. Apart from her letters
to her family giving them the news of life in London (with mentions of
David slipped in here and there to prepare them for the idea that she
and David were in love), Edinburgh now seemed a piece of her life which
had been amputated and thrown away.

Perhaps it is completely natural that women in love forget everything
else.

It is not selfishness, for their thoughts are not on themselves, but on
those they love. It is an absorption, all the more complete as love
increases, that shuts them away from any other emotional interests.
Perhaps every woman has the devotion of the nun in her, whether it finds
expression in beliefs or friendship or her children or her lover. This
world of their creating is enough: the rest is well lost.

Chapter Sixteen.

WOMEN ONLY.

On this Saturday in February Penny was standing at the window of her
small bedroom in Baker House. She was wrapped in her heavy
dressing-gown, because the room was cold and the small electric fire
only heated an area of three square feet in front of it. She was all
ready for Mrs. Fane's party except for the dress, which lay on the bed
until she could press it out. Neri, the Indian student who lived on this
floor, was in occupation of the communal ironing-board which stood in
the little alcove at the end of the passage, and it took a long time to
iron a said.

Penny was thinking that she did not want to go in the least to this
party.

And yet she must. Mrs. Fane had been at school with her mother.

Her mother kept writing, "Haven't you visited Mattie Fane's new house
yet? It is so near you. She will be so disappointed if you don't."

That, considered Penny, was rather an exaggeration. There was no
evidence of any desire on Mrs. Fane's part to make a special effort to
entertain her old school friend's daughter. Even this invitation to
sherry to-day had come by telephone this morning, and had caught Penny
quite unprepared with any feasible excuse, as telephone invitations
always did. Still, it would be better to go to Mrs. Fane's, and then
every one--her mother, Mrs. Fane, and her- self--could relax and not
worry about any more duty.

Penny looked at the glistening pavements, wondered if her stockings
would be ruined by ugly black splashes before she arrived at the party,
wondered about Mrs. Fane (whom she had seen only once in her life, and
that was six or seven years ago), wondered when Neri would have finished
with the ironing-board, wondered what she would wear for David's visit
to London to-morrow, wondered if it would be decent weather then. It
wouldn't matter, of course, if it did pour with rain. Nothing could ruin
Sunday. Sunday was the most perfect day in all the week.

The door of her room opened, and a tall girl with fair hair, brushed
smooth in the current Slade School fashion, entered slowly.

"I did knock," Lillian Marston said, 'but you were dreaming." She was
slender as well as tall. Her eyes were large, grey-green, and very
direct.

Her wide, slow smile was lazy. Her movements were slow, too,
deliberately so: she moved with a grace that did not seem calculated,
but gave the appearance of being controlled. Her face was well shaped,
and she liked to keep it quite pale without any hint of colour except in
the bright lips. All this had considerable effect on the men she met. No
one ever guessed that she had even noticed it.

Penny had at first regarded Marston as unapproachable: Marston was in
her final year, for one thing. But Marston had started coming in to see
her, and a rather curious impersonal friendship was begun. In Baker
House the Slade students kept together, as if they were in some tight
trade union. They viewed other students who lived there--the scientists,
the teachers to be, the future doctors, librarians, private
secretaries--with a mixture of alarm and amusement. That they themselves
were viewed with much the same attitude would have been a shock to most
of them.

Marston was wearing her grey-green suit to-day, with a dark red chiffon
scarf folding softly into its neckline. She never wore jewellery except
bracelets, but these she liked to clasp in heavy rows round one wrist.

"Fun and games, I see," she said, as she looked at the black dress on
the bed. She settled herself comfortably in the armchair.

"Or haven't you made up your mind yet whether you are going out?

Hideous day. I've been sleeping practically all afternoon."

"I'm waiting for Neri," Penny explained.

Marston laughed.

"Every one does. I think she irons one of those saris every day. The joy
of living on the top floor: we have one ironing-board and Neri. Those
bloated plutocrats downstairs have two ironing-boards to each floor and
no Neri or her dresses."

"They aren't dresses. They are works of art," Penny said. "Six yards
round the hem. She told me that very proudly the other day. It is the
only complete sentence I have managed to get out of her so far."

Penny sat down on the bed, for her guest had taken the only comfortable
chair, and curled up her legs to keep warm.

"Imagine six yards of the thinnest embroidered muslin trailing over city
streets in February rain."

"I wonder why she bothers to wear a said in England? She catches cold so
easily. And, in any case, the effect is quite ruined when she adds that
brown cloth coat with its piece of fur at the neck. I suggested that one
day to Neri, but she looked at me in a very hurt way. Hasn't spoken to
me since." Marston lit a cigarette and studied her excellent hands.
"Grubby," she announced.

"I'll have to soak them to get rid of that charcoal." Then she smiled as
her thoughts flickered back to Neri.

"Meanwhile I have the room next door to hers, and I am kept half awake
all night by that cough she has developed."

"Well, she will look charming in June if she doesn't die of pneumonia
before that," Penny said. She was watching the clock anxiously. She
looked down at her dress to see if it really needed pressing. It did.

It was a black one, bought at the expense of a month's inadequate
lunches.

It looked smart in its simplicity (Penny had ripped off a lot of the
extra trimming), but it did need constant pressing.

"I am going to the Fanes'," she explained, 'and I have got to look
presentable. Mother's friends, you know."

"A party without David?" Marston asked teasingly.

"Tomorrow is your day, of course. I forgot that," she added, regarding
Penny with a touch of amusement.

"Sunday is the one day on which you get decent food in this place, and
you always miss it. Of course, they probably calculated that a lot of
girls would be invited out on Sundays, so it was a good day to pick for
serving roast beef Never mind, the trustees who pay visits on Sundays
must approve of the food we get."

Penny laughed, opened the door, and looked discreetly into the corridor.
She came back to the bed again, shaking her head ruefully, and glanced
once more at the clock. "Now, if that were only you outside I could say

"Boyi Let me have that iron for just two minutes." But I don't like to
say that to Neri. She would probably think I was trying to throw my
imperial weight about."

Marston nodded.

"Makes it difficult," she agreed, 'unless you are like me and just don't
give a damn." She shrugged her shoulders, smiled, and glanced round the
room.

She noticed the envelope waiting to be posted, which lay beside Penny's
handbag and gloves. She made no further reference to David, but she let
herself wonder what on earth those two could have to say to each other
that filled a letter every day. Each morning on the hall table there was
a fat envelope from Oxford for Lorrimer. Sometimes registered, too,
which aroused amusing ideas. She looked at Penny speculatively. Now was
the time, she decided, to approach the question which had brought her
here in the first place.

"Lorrimer, I like you," she said gravely, 'but sometimes I do think you
are certifiable."

Penny looked up in surprise from adjusting a stocking seam.

"Let me prove it," Marston said.

"Are you coming with me to the dance tonight?"

"Oh, I have a lot of things to do," Penny said slowly.

"Always some old excuse," Marston said.

"That is why you are certifiable. Lorrimer, have a look in your mirror.
Go on. Look. Now see what I mean?"

Penny turned away from the mirror above the small bureau. "No," she said
shortly.

"I am only trying to say that there's no possible harm in going out with
at least some of the young men who plague you. They are mostly harmless
enough.

David Whatever-his name-is couldn't object to you going to the college
dances at least. Besides, why on earth should you do everything he tells
you? That isn't good for a man--not good at all. Gives him ideas about
being indispensable. Sorry, Lorrimer, I know it is none of my business,
but frankly I have been aching to say these things for the last few
months." Marston looked at Penny with a sudden warm smile. She's such a
swee innocent, she thought; just the kind to get badly hurt. An< she is
much too good value to get badly hurt.

Penny said, "In the first place, I don't really want to go to this dance
as much as all that. In the second place, Davk doesn't tell me to do
anything." She liked Lillian Marston, o: she would not have bothered
explaining. Besides, if Marstoi did not approve of the way Penny was
arranging her life Penny did not see any particular wisdom in the way
Marstoi arranged her own life. This consisted of frantic bursts of work
punctuating weeks of fun. You could always tell when the affair with Tom
had ended: she worked for ten days as if sh( were driven by a demon. And
then the affair with Dick woulc begin. You could tell when it ended too.
She worked. Anc then the affair with Harry.

And then work. But Tom and al the rest of them remained her friends once
the quarrel was forgotten, and even the teachers treated Marston to les;
sarcasm than might be expected. For one thing, she had i certain good
humour, a certain honesty, and such comp let frankness in her actions
that, although there were times to b( angry with Marston, there were no
moments when yoi despised her.

"I don't quite follow," Marston said. (I thought you well acting under
orders."

Penny shook her head.

"I am perfectly free to do what ] want. And I do what I want."

Marston stared, and then she lit another cigarette.

"Struth. she said.

"I do believe the girl means it." She spoke with rea seriousness. She
looked worriedly at Penny, hesitated, lookec at her cigarette and then
back at the younger girl's face

"Frankly," she said slowly, choosing her words carefully, tv never
known a man who didn't go out with several girls ever when he thought he
was being serious about one. It is rathe] a harsh fact about life, but
it is just as well to guard agains it. Men have their own little way of
bringing you back to earth. They are realists, you know. They will write
poetry t( your eyes, swear eternal devotion, and then sit enthrallec
through one of those Hollywood musicals because they like the shape of
the legs in the first row.

Penny laughed.

"But I like them too," she said.

Marston shrugged her shoulders. For a moment she coulc find nothing else
to say. She was too busy thinking that the extraordinary thing about
people was the way they surprised you.

Penny said, "Have you ever thought, Marston, that if his one girl
accepts invitations with other men, then that might be the reason why a
man is so " realistic"?"

"Look, I was the one who was giving out advice," Marston said sharply.
She rose, brushed the cigarette ash off her skirt, pulled its waist-band
into the right position round twenty-four inches of firm flesh, and
looked critically down at the way the material covered her slender
thighs.

"Well," she said, suddenly businesslike, "I'll try to grab a place in
the queue and get a bath before dinner.

I take it you aren't going dancing to-night? I thought so somehow.

Poor old Derek will be disappointed. I came here to plead for him, you
know.

I'll tell him you have the va pours And that's as good a description as
any."

She walked to the door, turned to give one of her slow smiles, raised
one eyebrow. She did this unconsciously now, ever since Derek--the Derek
of some three months ago, that was--had told her she looked very much
like Garbo.

But from the corridor quite another kind of Marston reported on the
ironing-board situation: India had declared, and it was now Scotland's
innings. And Penny smiled as she remembered Marston's usual pretence
that she didn't know one end of a wicket from the other, and thought it
quite remarkable how Marston never actually said either "Hello' or
"Goodbye," and yet one always remembered her coming and going.

Chapter Seventeen.

MRS FANE ENTERTAINS.

When Penny did eventually arrive at Mrs. Fane's there were already
enough people to fill two rooms. The voices and laughter flowed into the
hall and surrounded her there. She would have backed right out of the
pseudo-Georgian doorway if the stiff-necked servant had not already
taken her in supercilious charge, and she found herself in the middle of
the party, engulfed in a sea of strange faces and voices. Sh- looked
round desperately for a possible Fane.

The small groups of men and women gave her a brie glance as she passed
them slowly, and then seemed not ti notice her. Where's my blasted
hostess, she wondered, an' then saw her, and went forward with a good
deal of relief, Mrs. Fane was talking to a group of three men near the
fireplace. She was thinner, incredibly so, and her hair had turnei'
quite black, with a harsh outline where it ended and the ver white
forehead began. In her tight-fitting black suit she had looked almost
young from the distance. But now Penny was horrified by the two
appraising eyes which swooped on her by the white mask which cracked
round the lips as they weni through the motions of smiling.

She doesn't remember me at all. Penny thought in desperation, and
introduced herself. But at that moment a crescendc of chatter and
trilling laughter came from the nearest group of guests. And Mrs. Fane
(she was much deafer than she would ever admit) said, "How dye do? So
glad you coulc come." She said it so quickly that Penny's second attempt
al introducing herself was stillborn. Perhaps, Penny thought names don't
matter at cocktail parties, anyway. She glancec towards the door, and
wondered if she could pretend sh< was about to leave.

But probably Mrs. Fane's shrewd eyes had seen her come into the room.

Penny was right about that. There was nothing wrong witt Mrs. Fane's
sight, even if her hearing was becoming hard She had taken in the girl's
appearance with her first glance Yes, pretty enough, Mrs. Fane decided.
Very expert at make up, with a complexion like that. Simple dress, too
simple to show what price it might have been. No hat--how odd. Gooc
gloves, good black suede bag and shoes, though. Probably from of
Robert's young things: he liked red hair. Mrs. Fane lookec swiftly
towards her elder son, who was fortunately within eye reaching distance.
Really, Robert must look after his owi friends.

"Frightful day," she said to the girl, marking tim until Robert could
reach them. He appeared almost at once thank Heaven.

"Robert will get you a drink," she said, with t death's-head smile, and
turned to continue her conversatior with Mr. Bronway, the producer, and
Mr. Winson, the edito] of New Views. Saying "Yes?" to Mr. Winson at the
righ intervals, she let her eyes flicker unobtrusively towards the
doorway every thirty seconds or so, and concealed her worry that neither
the star of the new hit. Bright To-morrow, nor Lady Fenton-Stevens with
her delightful Baron Schaudichan, nor Essex Rockfort, the
portrait-painter, had yet arrived. And soon, Mrs. Fane's instinct was
telling her, it would be too late for them to arrive. So she set her
smile bravely, and said,

"Yes? Yes?" Mr. Winson, fortunately, was accustomed to the hostess look,
and he talked calmly on, knowing that his reward was his strategic
position next to Mrs. Fane when any guest worth bothering about did
present himself.

Robert led Penny towards the other end of the room "Frightful crush, I'm
afraid," he said. He was tall, thin, and dark, with slightly prominent
teeth displayed when he gave one of his slow smiles. The lips would draw
slowly back in a lazy curve (that was what you were meant to think, she
was sure), and then they would just stay that way, curved and lazy.
Surely there must be a time-limit.

Penny smiled, tried to look interested, and waited for the next
percipient phrase to fall. Robert, she was remembering, was the elder
son. Billy was the other one. In between them came Carol. When they all
had met six years ago Robert and Billy had been very offhand schoolboys,
Robert a lofty prefect with his new motor-cycle. Billy a rather grubby
specimen of an over-bullied fag. Carol had been a placid blonde sausage,
with shoulder-length ringlets and shapeless legs that emphasized the
likeness.

Robert was saying that it was a frightful day. Everything seemed to be
frightfully this or frightfully that. Frightful. A frightful word.

Penny smiled again. After that the flow of one-sentence conversation
swept smoothly along for five minutes. Robert did not appear in the
least disturbed that he hadn't the faintest idea who she was. And Penny
had the impression that he would consider her 'frightfully' gauche if
she started totell him. She was remembering enough about Robert,
anyway, to keep her amused. He had been sent down from Cambridge because
of a barmaid, and had now graduated to actresses in London. In addition
to acquiring a very elegant way of wearing his blackish-grey flannel
suit, with its broadly spaced pin-stripe of white, he had achieved the
appearance of always being slightly tired.

Robert, for his part, was deciding that he hadn't seen this girl's face
in any of the right magazines after all. He looked round for Billy--this
was definitely his dish of fruit as Malvina Moore, the star of Bright
To-morrow, made her entrance.

"I say," Robert suggested with sudden enthusiasm, as he saw his brother
obey his summons, 'you haven't a drink. Let me find you one."

Billy, in his first year at Oxford, small and dark, with the appearance
of always being slightly tired not yet completely established, came
forward slowly. And then, as he saw Penny, his pace and his eyes
quickened.

"Yours, I think," Robert murmured, and made his way towards Malvina.

Billy looked thoughtfully at Penny. I believe I know her, he was
thinking.

"Frightful mob," he said enthusiastically. *I say, you haven't a drink.
Let me."

Penny smiled as she watched his adroit progress towards the table at the
other end of the room. But he would come back, she knew. She glanced
round, interested in the faces that surrounded her. It would not be too
cruel, she decided, to say that most had come here either to see or to
be seen. One face, round, white, innocent in its lack of expression, had
almost looked at her twice. It belonged to a young man in the usual
pin-striped suit and suede shoes and negligent tie.

Now he gradually drew near to where she stood.

He said, looking determinedly into his glass, "Don't let Billy inflict a
cocktail on you. The sherry at least comes out of a reputable bottle."

Penny was uncertain whether the remark was addressed to her or not.

She glanced briefly to her right and left, but people there were quite
occupied.

He went on talking to his cocktail glass. The trouble is that English
ice has too much warm water in it." He gave her a split-second stare and
then fixed his eyes on a music critic's bald head which seemed to
fascinate him.

"You are the American, aren't you? I think we saw each other vaguely at
Nigel's. Or was it at Bunny's?" "Not even vaguely," Penny said.

"And I'm afraid I am not the American, either. But I am a foreigner of
sorts, I believe."

Billy, returning from his pilgrimage, overheard that remark. Speaks
remarkably good English, he thought. Now what foreigners had he met in
the last few weeks? Where had he seen her?

"Martini, side-car, or sherry?" he asked, balancing the three glasses
with practised agility.

"I must warn you the cocktails are Robert's own concoction. That's
rather his thing, you know."

"Definitely," the white-faced young man murmured.

"All the charm of absinth." He watched Penny as she chose a glass, shook
his head with marked disapproval, and said in a shocked voice, "Don't
tell me you prefer sherry!" And then, as she looked slightly startled,
he added with a bright smile, "Now do go on telling me about your
father's place in Chile." He was watching her with warm interest.

"The smallest one," he said evenly.

"The one with the golf-course and the ski-run." His interest was now
expectant. When he was a small boy he had no doubt examined a fly on the
end of a pin with just that very look.

"Oh  ..." she said deprecatingly, 'it is really so very small.

Besides, I haven't visited it for years. I was sent to London. For my
health. Lots and lots of fog, the doctors ordered. I simply must have
fog.

The young man's eyes looked at her with disappointment. "And in summer?"
His interest was waning. He was already looking round the room for a
more likely subject.

"Labrador, usually."

Billy smiled easily at both of them. He hadn't the faintest idea of what
was happening, but if he smiled and held his glass nonchalantly and
looked interested in a polite, vague way  ...  That usually was enough.

The white-faced young man let his eyes rest on the group round Malvina.

"Dear Malvina!" he said, with charming venom.

"She will choose such ghastly plays. Have you seen the new effort? And
there's the chap who invented it." He nodded towards the author, who
had, in a moment of weakness, accompanied Malvina to the party, and was
now regretting it as he stood and drank his cocktail in silence, while
Robert Fane concentrated on Malvina and Malvina concentrated on her
upturned profile.

"It takes a special genius to think up so many cliches in only three
acts.

And I'm sure he wasn't even trying." He looked at the poor, unsuspecting
playwright thoughtfully.

"He needs a little cheering up, I think," he added, with a sudden gleam
of interest in his colour less eyes. He moved away as quietly, as
inconspicuously and crab wise as he had arrived.

"It is always difficult talking to Tony," Billy confessed, under the
impact of his fifth cocktail.

"Brilliant chap, of course," he ended hastily.

"How amusing for him." Penny was watching that little ray of sunshine
now circling round the unfortunate playwright.

"Tony writes," Billy went on, as if that explained everything.

"How ever does he find time? What has he had published?"

"Well, he has not actually been published yet. He is in the middle of
something."

"A novel about people at cocktail parties?"

"Yes. London life, really. I believe he is putting a lot of us into it."

"That will be gay."

"Fun spotting one's friends," Billy admitted.

"We are all being made into the most frightful old reprobates, you
know."

"I am sure it will have an enormous success."

Billy giggled. Must tell that to Tony, he thought, with just that
intonation she had used: Tony would be furious. Better not, though: Tony
might take him out of the book just to spite him.

And then, at that moment, his sister Carol appeared, looking definitely
peeved about something. Penny recognized her mostly by her voice: it had
still the same high-pitched, cracked-crystal tone.

"Billy," it was saying coldly, "Eleanor is here. She and George arrived
ages ago." Carol turned to Penny with a pretty smile.

"I'm afraid my brother has been monopolizing you."

Billy craned his neck to look round the room.

"Why, there's old George. Can't see Eleanor. I'll go and find her." He
smiled hesitatingly to Penny.

"I'll bring George over. He'd like to meet you, I know." Then he felt a
wave of supercharged annoyance emanate from his sister, and he left
hurriedly.

Carol hesitated. There must be some one to introduce: Billy was such an
idiot--he might very well bring George over. Yes, there was Mrs.
Bigsley, the almost invisible wife of that awful Labour M. P. God only
knew why Father, even if he was a publisher, had to have his parlour
pinks to a party. The fact that he made his money out of them, by
dolling up Karl Marx for the seven-and-sixpenny trade, was no excuse for
inflicting them on the rest of the family.

At this moment. however, Mrs. Bigsley could be excused even for her
taste in clothes.

"Ah, Mrs. Bigsley," Carol said, lightly trapping her by the arm as she
passed by.

"How nice to see you."

"I must leave," Penny said quickly.

"Must you?" Carol lost all interest in Mrs. Bigsley, who went on her way
towards the safe shadow of her husband.

"Good-bye, Carol. It has been a most amusing party," Penny said, which
was true enough in the wrong way. She could not resist adding, "It has
been ages since we met, hasn't it?"

"Yes, hasn't it?" Carol said, and concealed her bewilderment admirably.

Penny relented. She was about to say, "I'm Penelope Lorrimer, you know."
But at that moment George Fentonstevens appeared at her elbow.

"I thought it was you," he said, with obvious pleasure. "And how is
Inchnamurren?"

It was at this moment, too, that Mrs. Fane brought Essex Rockfort over
to meet her daughter. It had taken her a very adroit half-hour of
manoeuvres to achieve that. Essex Rock- fort had reached the plane of
success when he did not paint a portrait unless he was interested in the
subject. His price was enormous, of course; but it could be adjusted
considerably, it was said, if he found a face that stimulated his
imagination. Naturally, at this stage in one's carefully planned
offensive, one did not talk of prices: money was a vulgar subject which
one avoided.

"Carol!" Mrs. Fane said, with a warning sweetness in her voice.

George said quietly to Penny, "Let's try the music-room. It is less
crowded there. Are you down here on holiday?" He led Penny
authoritatively away from the little group. Strange, he was thinking, I
didn't notice on Inchnamurren what a peach she is. He began talking with
enthusiasm to make up for lost time.

Carol watched them leave the drawing-room, and her mother's eyes
followed her look, and then tried to recapture her attention. But it
remained vague and wandering in spite of a sharply sweet "Darling ..

" In any case, Essex Rockfort only spoke about two sentences, and after
one keen glance at Carol's face let his eyes roam back towards Malvina.
Mrs. Fane smiled in resignation and let him go: this was hardly the
moment to introduce Carol, after all. She looked at her daughter.
Really, after all the money spent on that dress, and all the trouble
having her hair and skin treated, Carol might at least have tried to put
some animation into her face for Essex Rockfort. Of course, her features
fell naturally into repose, serene and ladylike: only they didn't have
to be such a  ...  such a  ...  Mrs. Fane put the idea of blank walls
firmly out of her mind.

"Carol!" she said sharply, still smiling. And then she looked towards
the music-room.

"Who is she?"

"I don't know," Carol said, so crossly that all Mrs. Fane's annoyance
disappeared, and she became the defending mother once more.

"Don't worry, darling," she said, with decision, and began to move
towards the music-room.

It took a little time, for a hostess must drop an appropriate sentence
to each guest en passant. And sometimes the sentence would stretch to a
paragraph if the guest was of particular importance. It was quite a
feat, she considered, to be able to move about the crowded room at all
and remember what fame was attached to which face. (Apart from
misquoting three lines of Eliot to one of the quieter painters, and
praising the Manet exhibition at the Orangerie in Paris to a
self-effacing poet, she managed remarkably well.

A most successful party, she decided: scarcely a face to be seen whose
name was not a pleasure to pronounce. And then her delight in the chorus
of "Darlings," so easily given and received as she made her
much-interrupted way across the room, suddenly faded as she reached the
music-room and saw George and the girl with no name.

The girl was about to leave. Mrs. Pane recognized the symptoms with a
practised and relieved eye. So she halted in the doorway, and made small
talk with that awful Bigsley creature, much to his surprise.

One couldn't be too obvious, she thought, still keeping an eye on the
girl.

She would have been amazed to know that Penny had just refused an
invitation to dinner.

Penny and George had had a pleasant conversation. George had, naturally
enough, talked about David once she had brought him carefully round to
her favourite subject. It was surprising in some ways to find that
George had obviously no idea of her visits to Oxford or of David's to
London. But she remembered that George and David had not been seeing
very much of each other this winter--each was too busy with his own
interests and friends. And she also remembered that David had kept her
very much to himself when she visited Oxford, because, as he frankly
said, he saw little enough of her as it was, and he was damned if he
were going to share her round.

So she did not mention her visits to Oxford, and as she rose to her feet
she was finding a kind refusal for George.

"I'm being collected at seven--a birthday party in the wilds of
Chelsea."

"You'll have to hurry," George said, glancing at his watch. "What is
your address in town? I'll 'phone you soon, and we'll have dinner
together then if my luck is any better."

Penny did not have to reply to that, for Mrs. Fane had decided it was
now quite the obvious time to come forward, and smile and say, "George,
you must not monopolize all the pretty girls. And I did promise Malvina
that you would come and meet her."

It was bait that any young man would rise to. But George's manners were
good. He accompanied Penny towards the door. So did Mrs. Fane, pressing
her advantage.

"I didn't realize Penelope knew you, Mrs. Fane? I didn't even know she
was in London. Last time I saw her was at Inchnamurren, where Dr.
MacLntyre has a house."

Penelope. Something at last fitted into place in Mrs. Fane's jig-saw of
hidden worries. MacLntyre. Mary MacLntyre's daughter.

Neither Mrs. Fane's step nor voice faltered.

"How extraordinary," she agreed politely.

"I'm sorry we had so little time to talk. Parties are always such
crowded things."

"This has been a most amusing one. Thank you so much," Penny said.

Mrs. Fane looked sharply at her.

"Do come and see us again," she said vaguely.

"So nice having you. Give my love to your mother, won't you?"

Penny smiled. George was still totally innocent of the effect which his
question had produced on Mrs. Fane.

Near the door a group had gathered round Carol and another fair-haired
girl.

Rather a beauty. Penny decided. Poor Carol, how awful to have chosen the
same style of hair and the same kind of dress, and to have to stand
beside some one who outshone her so effortlessly.

"You did not meet my sister in Scotland, did you?" George asked.

"Have you time now? She is over there."

Penny's eyes followed his glance, looked at the girl beside Carol for a
brief second, and then smiled at George once more.

"I'm so sorry," she said, and a sudden coldness made her voice
elaborately polite.

"But I really am rather late."

So that was Eleanor.. Penny walked thoughtfully down the smooth
sandstone steps into the street. Then, as she saw its length stretch
before her towards Baker House, she began to hurry.

Her excuse to George had been perfectly honest, she told herself. She
was late.

She arrived breathlessly in the entrance-hall as the large gong gave its
final warning. Marston was waiting near the notice-board. Around her,
moving slowly towards the dining- room, was the usual Saturday night
crowd, some dressed to go out, some dressed to stay in. Faces, pretty
and plain, laughing and glum, expectant and resigned. All shapes and
colours of faces, thin and broad, short and long, pink, sallow, brown,
yellow. Marston signalled, and Penny struggled through the mass of girls
towards the notice-board. She smiled to those she knew as she passed
them, and some spoke. Fahdi, the Egyptian, was going to the dance
to-night, for she had washed her hair, and it sprang out from her head
in a thick black, curling mop.

So was Bennett, for she was wearing the new dress and the imitation
roses over which there had been an hour's discussion last night.

MacE wan from New Zealand gave her friendly, "Hello, there!" Neri in her
said: beautifully ironed, and six yards around the hem. Evans from
Cardiff wanted to borrow that new Faulkner. Mathers from the West Indies
suggested a party in her room to-night (bring your own cup, and spoon if
you like guava jelly). And at last Penny reached the notice-board.

"That looks simply marvelous," she said, eyeing Marston's long black
dress and red brocade jacket. But Marston was looking worried.

"He was here," she said, 'an hour ago. He could not manage to come
to-morrow, so he came to-night instead."

"David?"

"Yes. We introduced ourselves, and I told him you would be back about
seven."

"Why didn't you telephone me?"

"Darling, it is good for him to find you aren't always sitting about,
waiting for him. I told him you were at a party, frankly. And I also
said that I thought you might be free this evening, but I didn't know:
there was a dance at College which I had been trying to persuade you to
go to. Do him a lot of good to realize there are such things."

Penny looked at Marston.

"Where did he go?" she asked, trying to keep her voice even.

"Out. Don't worry. He will 'phone any moment now, and try to persuade
you not to go to the dance."

Penny shook her head miserably.

"Not David," she said slowly.

"Look, Lorrimer, I was only trying to help you." "I know," Penny said.
That was the trouble: people trying to help.

But Marston couldn't know just how much time or money it cost one, who
had little of either to spare, to come ap to London. Nor had she
remembered that the Fanes' invitation had come that morning, so that
David had not heard about it yet. Penny began to climb the stairs.

The hall was empty now. From the dining-room came the clatter of plates
and the sudden outburst of talk as Grace was completed.

"What about dinner, such as it is?" Marston called. And then, as Penny
did not answer her, had not even heard her, she went into the
dining-room.

"Absolute nonsense," she said to herself.

Penny walked slowly up the stairs to her room, closed the door wearily,
sat on the edge of her bed without turning on the light. She wondered
where David had gone this evening. And she wouldn't see him to-morrow.
He would not 'phone either: she knew her David. Probably, at this very
moment, he was trying not to think that she went to parties all the time
and never told him.

He would argue with himself that if she wanted to go to dances he was
not going to dissuade her.

"Oh, David!" she said aloud. And blast Marston. Her way isn't my way, or
David's. Blast her.

She crossed over to the window, trying to calm herself. After all,
things could be explained in letters. And things could also be
misunderstood. It suddenly appeared to her that a very small, very
trivial incident could cause a lot of damage.

Gower Street was quiet now. London's Sunday sleep always seemed to begin
here on Saturday evening. A few people hurried to keep a dinner
engagement or strolled out for a pleasant night. Occasional taxis, some
cars, but no more lorries or vans: a quiet street, an empty, lifeless
street, a desolate street. And then a man came out of the darkness,
halted under the lamp-post at the corner almost opposite Baker House,
and stood there looking at its rows of windows. It was David. Penny
rapped on the glass sharply, but she was too high up for anyone in the
street to hear. She had forgotten to turn on the light, so that he could
not even have seen her. But she only remembered these things as she
reached the hall, and scrawled her name in the "Out until 11.30'
register. He will be gone, she told herself, and dropped the pen, and
ran towards the door. The sedate maid on hall duty rose from her chair
and stared at the slamming door. Well, reely, she thought, and opened
the door curiously.

She saw Miss. Lorrimer running--running, mind you-- across Gower Street,
and heard the tearing screech of a taxi as it braked suddenly. The cabby
was kicking up no end of a fuss, too. So there hadn't been an accident,
although that hadn't been Miss. Lorrimer's fault. The maid shook her
head disapprovingly and closed the door. A fine way to behave, giving
people a turn like that? And for what?

Just what in the whole wide world was worth that? She sat down in her
corner once more picked up her copy of this week's Pam's Very Own, and
turned to the third instalment of young Lord Utterley's still unrequited
passion for the beautiful Muriel Midgeley.

Chapter Eighteen.

DINNER AT MARINELLLI'S.

At first David thought Penny had been hit by the taxi. But in the next
moment she was on the pavement beside him, laughing as if she had not
even noticed.

"Damn' fool," he said roughly, and caught her arm. Then he kissed her.

The taxi driver leaned forward to add his comment. David turned to the
man with an ugly look on his face, but Penny said, "Please, David," and
her hand on his arm pulled him gently away. Penny, David had to remind
himself, hated scenes. But it would have given him a lot of pleasure to
have had one: that was the mood he had been in for this last hour or so.

"It was my fault, David," she was saying, in a very subdued way for
Penny.

"But I didn't see him. I didn't see anything except you. And I was so
afraid that you might have disappeared into London before I could run
down all those stairs and out of the door."

It was difficult, David thought, to be very polite, charming, and just a
little diffident. That was what he had intended to be.

Remembering too how he had felt in that moment when he was sure she had
been hit, he halted, looked at her, and then kissed her so hard that her
lower lip was cut.

"Just to make sure you are really here," he said, as he reached for his
handkerchief.

"Sorry, darling. But I happen to love you, you see.

You shouldn't be allowed out without a bodyguard."

Penny hugged his arm. Everything was all right again ...  She was with
David, and there were at least three hours left to them before he had to
catch that train. She would explain all about Marston and the Fanes to
him.

But not at the moment: at the moment explanations would only seem like
excuses. Later, once dinner had begun, she would tell him all about it.
For explanations were necessary. She felt that instinctively. You could
reason out that adults did not have to explain to each other, but
instinct was so often more accurate than reasoning. At least. Penny
thought, when she acted on instinct with David, she was always glad: and
when she reasoned things out she was often sorry she had not followed
her first intuition. Reasoning might be good for facts and figures, but
it wasn't enough for human beings.

For instance, this sort of thing could easily happen again--a trivial
thing hardly worth explaining it might seem. And it could happen again
.. and again  ...  always small and trivial, always hardly worth
explaining. And then, when some really dangerous crisis between David
and herself did arise--and human beings always seemed to have periodic
crises--it would be all the past differences, unexplained, which might
make understanding so difficult. Yes, Penny decided, sh, would tell
David later, tell him casually and amusingly That would be the best
time, once they had settled comfort ably at a table in Marinelli's and
dinner had begun.

They crossed over Tottenham Court Road, busy am garish, with that
early-Saturday-night feeling when wornei put on their smartest clothes
and men have extra money ir their pockets, when the evening stretches
ahead pleasanth and everything is still to be enjoyed. No
disappointments, n( disenchantments yet, David thought. A good hour of
thi week, welcoming every one with a bright smile, saying, "Nov go
ahead; enjoy yourselves." A good hour, perhaps one of th best hours in
the week. Something of the feeling o expectancy in the air caught him up
too. He looked at Penn^ with pride: once they were inside Marinelli's
and seated a a table for two, once he had ordered some food and wine, h<
would tell her. All the excitement which had accompaniec him to London
on his train journey began to return to him God, what a disappointment
it had been to arrive at Bake] House and find Penny wasn't there. What a
hellish hour wandering round dark Bloomsbury squares by himself arguing
with himself, persuading, wondering, while all the time the amazing news
which had put him into such higt- spirits on the train was turning into
a frustrated chunk of gloom.

From Tottenham Court Road a narrow side-street led there to Charlotte
Street, empty and quiet at this hour. Only the little foreign
restaurants and shops were brightly lit, smal oases of warmth and
hospitality in a cold, dark street.

Marinelli's was crowded, as usual, with journalists and students,
painters and writers. When you entered you felt almost blinded,
suffocated, deafened.

Then you go accustomed to the bright light, and the warmth was pleasant
and the Babel of noise made you feel you were one of a group and not a
lonely individual. You could ignore, or yoi could take part in, the
arguments going on around the larg< tables. No one worried whether you
did or did not. And as well as the voices explaining and expounding and
laughing, there were the orders shouted in Italian towards the kitchen
window, where the face of Marinelli's eldest soi would appear every now
and again to shout back. There wa; the noise of plates and glasses as
Marinelli's four daughters served--with generous smiles, Italian
phrases, and flashing glances.

There were the sudden bursts of conversation between Mrs. Marinelli, at
the cash-desk by the door, and Mr. Marinelli, moving among the tables.

Now, as Penny and David entered the narrow, glass- panelled door with
its three missing letters (M rinel it informed you), Mrs. Marinelli gave
them a loud, Neapolitan welcome, which would also act as a warning to
her husband to find room for two more. Marinelli's youngest son
Giuseppe, balancing plates of steaming spaghetti with its cardinal caps
of rich red sauce, shouted that there was a free table upstairs. "For
two?" David asked.

"Si si." He laughed heartily. Always a table for two. "Near window," Mr.
Marinelli put in. He pointed to his legs, shook his head, smiled
apologetically for not leading them upstairs personally, pursed his
mouth, raised his shoulders, gestured with his hands. Mr. Marinelli had,
as he had once explained in detail, very close veins.

As they climbed the narrow wooden stairs, so tightly built against the
yellow plaster wall, with its hand-painted panels (views of Naples done
by Mr. Marinelli's second son, helped by an artist who had needed a
month of free dinners) and its bright pink paper flowers fashioned by
one of Mr. Marinelli's daughters, the one with the slow, lazy smile of
La Gioconda), David said, "There are three reasons why I like this
place. No one stops talking to bother looking at us. We aren't expected
to leave the minute we finish coffee. And I get you to myself."

He paused, and the lightness went out of his voice.

"At least, as much as I can get you to myself at present." Then they sat
down at the small table beside a yellow-curtained window, and he
pretended to be very matter-of-fact in seeing that she was comfortably
settled and that dinner was ordered. Chicken cacciatore, he decided:
to-night called for something more elaborate than spaghetti. And Chianti
too.

Giuseppe, who always made a point of serving them, no matter where they
had found a table, took the order quickly and bustled away with his wide
grin and

"Si, si, signore. Subito."

David stretched his hand across the white tablecloth and gripped Penny's
hand.

"Well," he said, 'aren't you going to ask me why I came to London
tonight?"

Penny, who had been wishing that Giuseppe would hurry up with the soup
so that she could then begin to explain about the Fanes' party and have
done with the whole stupid thing, looked startled.

"Darling, I'm sorry," she said quickly, and shook her head at her own
stupidity.

"I've been sort of worried in a small way, and that makes one slow in
the uptake."

"What sort of worries?" he asked, forgetting his own news.

"Nothing important. They can wait until you tell me why you came to
London." She looked at him anxiously.

"Good news?" she asked hesitatingly. Yes, it was good, she decided. She
smiled suddenly, wholeheartedly, and as he watched the deep blue of her
eyes he thought of the laughing waters around Inchnamurren on a sunlit
day.

"Did I ever tell you how beautiful you are?" he asked.

"Much too often for the sake of my vanity. David, what is your news?"

"Or that I love you?" He was smiling too.

"David, what is it?"

He was serious again.

"Desperately? For ever?"

"Darling, what is----" She fell silent, and the colour in her cheeks
mounted.

She said in a very low voice, "I love you too, David."

He waited.

"For ever, David."

"You don't say that often enough."

"It is about all that I do say in my letters."

"Still not often enough. I want to hear it every day, not just read it.

Every day, every night. You know what I want."

Then both were silent, both were thinking of last Sunday. He watched her
face, with its emotions changing, following so quickly one on the other.
He tightened his grasp on her wrist.

"Don't worry, darling," he said.

"It is my fault. I shouldn't have even let you see how I really feel. I
tried to write you about it this week, but it is difficult to put it
down adequately on paper.

Sometimes you need expression in voice or eyes to help words to speak in
the way you want them to speak. So I had to see you to-night. I began to
worry I might have lost you." And to-night, in that miserable
waiting-room at Baker House, he had believed that he had lost her: this
was the beginning of the flight, he had thought. And he had walked for
an hour around the squares, watching lamplight on wet pavements and
straggling naked branches, feeling the coldness of February strike into
his heart. He smiled now, as he looked at her, but there was still
uncertainty in his eyes.

"Did you begin to dislike me last week?" he asked half jokingly, but he
was never more serious as he waited for the answer.

"David," Penny said gently, and shook her head slowly, and there was so
much love in her face that he could say nothing.

"It is my fault," she said.

"It is just that I don't want to be-- to be rushed. Or perhaps I am a
coward and full of inhibitions. I've got to be so sure in my own mind
that I have no fears or doubts or anything. And yet I am sure I love
you. I'm full of contradictions too, it seems. I love you, and I hurt
you because I take love so seriously."

"Don't I?"

"Yes. I know you do. That is why I feel so inadequate. I shouldn't need
time to decide, I shouldn't have any battle to fight with my mind. I do
love you. And you love me. And nothing else matters. I know that. I know
that I am so happy with you that every other happiness gets smaller and
smaller.

And yet, I'm afraid, and I hesitate. I let you make love to me, love as
violent as last Sunday's. And yet I'm afraid and I hesitate. Although I
want you to go on loving me and making love to me. What's wrong with me,
David? I am not being honest, am I?" She shook her head slowly,
answering herself, disliking the answer. Then she went on, her voice now
emotionless, arguing with herself as she had argued all this last week,

"Lillian Marston, for instance ...  She has had several men, and she has
no misgivings. Yet she has never loved one of them in the way I love
you. And she has never been loved in the way you love me either. I don't
mean to say that she doesn't know what love is. But there is a casual
quality about her way of loving. She calls it freedom."

Penny hesitated again, and then her voice became tense as she continued.

"I think that only means she is afraid of going into love so deeply that
she could never fall in love again. She feels it is too dangerous, in
case he changed and fell out of love with her somehow. One could feel
very alone, then, if one had loved so much that there was nothing left
to give anyone else."

David had been watching her face. Now he leaned forward and said
quickly, "Is that what is worrying you about Giuseppe materialized from
the other world. He sadly cleared the unfinished plates away, shrugged
his shoulders, and produced an encouraging smile with the casserole of
chicken. He set the salad before them with the vinegar and oil bottles,
adjusted the pepper and salt and the mixing bowl, poured the wine into
their glasses, and stood back for a moment to survey the effect. Too
serious, he thought, as he left them.

Young people shouldn't be too serious. What had young people to worry
about?

"Let's not start blaming ourselves. Penny," David said.

"It isn't our fault that we are faced with more problems than we
bargained for.

We've been led to believe all our lives, and the propaganda still goes
on, that love is quite a simple formula: all two people have to do is to
fall in love, be faithful, wait peacefully for marriage, and the rest is
a matter of living happily ever after. But it doesn't work out like
that. The trouble is that young men aren't quite built that way." He
repressed a smile at his unconscious choice of words.

That's the truest thing you've said to-night, he told himself wryly.

He said, "Moralists--and I think the first of them must have been an old
man with a young wife--can say, "You shouldn't do this: you ought to do
that." But if they are talking to young men in love they might as well
tell a typhoid germ not to start a fever. I'm not unique.

Penny; you mustn't think that." He smiled openly now, as he remembered
the variety of complications in the sex-life of all young men he knew.

"I am not a case for the medical text-books. There are millions of young
men of my age going through the same mental contortions at this moment."
And physical, too, he thought grimly.

"If they have money, love is made an easier problem: they can get
married right away. If they live in a less complicated cultural group,
they can marry too; their families rally round, and they either build
themselves a one-room house on their father's small farm or they can
share the family house and perhaps the family work.

Or they may belong to a group which doesn't worry about marrying at all:
they think that getting into bed with a girl is as natural as eating
breakfast in the morning. They would probably not understand one word
I've said: they would think that men like me are either mad or fools.
Are we?" "No," Penny said, "You aren't mad or fools. You just have a lot
more to overcome. And it doesn't seem fair." Giuseppe appeared once
more. He said nothing this time, but he removed the cover of the
earthenware dish to remind them.

Penny smiled, and David's annoyance over the interruption vanished.

In a way the interruption had been good, for Penny's voice was less
despairing as she said, "I am not worth all this trouble, David. How
much simpler it would have been for you to fall in love with some one
like Lillian Marston."

"And if you were like her, in how many months would you be leaving me?
No, thank you: not for me."

Penny gave a real smile this time.

"Darling, just be patient with me.

Just let me argue all this out for myself in my own way. It isn't that I
don't want to--to have you and to be yours. It isn't that. You said I
didn't want you enough." She paused, remembering how that had hurt.

"David," she said, with desperate sincerity, 'it isn't that. I want to
be with you all the time. I want you to make love to me. So it can't be
that I don't want you enough. It is just that a girl--oh, I don't know,
but she is so influenced by her family and surroundings and everything.
Men are so much more free in their decisions, you know. They are
independent. If men and women were judged by equal standards, then it
would be different. We could be courageous too.

But for generations and generations we've been dependent and obedient,
and that has put a kind of deep fear into us. Isn't that it, David?"

"If you weren't afraid of hurting your family you would do what you felt
was right for yourself? Would you?" He tried to make his voice sound
casual.

"Yes," Penny admitted very slowly.

"Yes," she said honestly.

David relaxed. It was the family. A man could deal with the barriers
which a family had raised. Frigidity could never be dealt with. He said,
"I have even thought of giving up Oxford, of looking for a job, any job,
anywhere. Now."

Penny shook her head.

"Later, if things did not go well for you, I'd always blame myself. As I
got older and uglier I'd think I had forced you into a very bad bargain.
I'd blame myself for having ruined your life."

David began to laugh, Then don't ruin so easily," he said." Not if their
wives keep them happy. Besides, we aren't all the geniuses which we like
to think we are, we know that."

Giuseppe, looking for the fifth time towards the table at the window,
was delighted to see them happy again. The young man was laughing, and
the girl was smiling in the way she used to smile. They were even
beginning to taste the food. That was a good sign, a very good sign. If
they could eat food that was half cold and not notice it, then they must
be still in love.

The young man was drinking his wine now. Good, very good. She wasn't
going to leave him after all.

These English were very strange indeed: imagine choosing a restaurant to
persuade your mistress to keep on living with you. Imagine, even,
persuading with words! Still, the young man had succeeded. At this
moment her eyes were filled with sunshine like the waters before Napoli.
Giuseppe smiled too, as he hurried downstairs, summoned by a piercing
scream from the cash-desk.

"This," David said, as he looked at his glass of wine, 'reminds me that
I came here to celebrate a decision. You still haven't found out why I
am here in London to-night to see you."

Penny studied his face.. "It is good news, anyway," she said.

"What is it, David? It is good, isn't it?"

"I think so." He was trying to be noncommittal. The attempt failed.

"I have been deciding about this future job of mine."

Penny stared blankly.

"I thought it was all decided. You were going to sit the Foreign Office
examinations after you finished with Oxford."

"I've changed my mind," he said briefly.

"I had the offer of two possible jobs this week. Isn't it extraordinary
how you can think and worry about a job, and then suddenly two arrive
almost at the same time? All or nothing, it seems, in this world. I
wanted to hear what you thought about them, Penny. That is why I came
chasing up here to-day. Tomorrow I have to lunch with one of the men who
is offering me a job."

"David, why did you change your mind?"

David didn't answer that.

"The first job," he said, 'is one with an oil company. Abroad, of
course, in some peculiar place with the temperature around one hundred
and ten degrees.

But they do offer a princely salary. One thousand a year, flat, to start
with. It goes on to incredible heights, if they like you." "A thousand
pounds?" Penny said incredulously.

"David, that's terrific. But, darling, what do you know about oil?"
"Nothing," David said cheerfully.

"The oil firm is picking out two or three young men from the
Universities for certain jobs. That's all.

What do you think of it?"

"A thousand pounds is an awful lot of money," Penny said slowly.

"Are you sure they really were in earnest?"

David repressed a smile.

"Quite," he said.

"And what is the other job?"

"It is with Edward Fairbairn."

"The economist? The man who is interested in political things?"

"Yes." This time David smiled.

"He has just bought the old Economic Outlook, and he is going to turn it
into a weekly magazine dealing with politics here and abroad. He is
especially interested in employment and unemployment. He's against the
dole, for instance.

Says that it is only patting on a soothing ointment to a dangerous
cancer: what we need is some intelligent surgery that will get to its
root. That's the idea, vaguely, on which he is going to make a fairly
large- sized report.

He has offered me the chance to join his staff.

I'd be working mostly on material for his report on seasonal
unemployment, although I'd have a permanent job on his paper. That would
give the steady salary. Three hundred pounds a year. Reviewing and
articles on the side would probably bring in another fifty
pounds--perhaps even a hundred. How does it sound?"

"And after the report was finished?"

"I should then concentrate on political articles and reporting, perhaps
with a chance to travel. There is also a definite rise in salary if I am
any good. If not I get chucked out on my ear. Fair enough."

"But, David, I don't quite understand." Penny was really perplexed.

In the Foreign Office you'd get almost three hundred pounds a year to
start with. And you never get chucked out there. Not unless you get all
tangled up in some scandal with a woman or something like that. So why
give up the F .0. idea and think of Fairbairn?"

"There is quite a difference in salary actually," David said. "It costs
twice or even three times as much to live as a diplomat as it does to
live as a journalist. A journalist can spend just as much or as little
as it suits him on clothes or entertaining. But a diplomat has a
semi-public kind of life: he has " obligations." It is hard on him,
harder than most people think: either he must have some small income of
his own or he must wait for years before he can get married."

"So that's why you gave up the idea of trying for the F .0, We should
have to wait for years ..." She frowned, pushed aside her plate,
fingered the stem of the coarse wineglass Then she said quickly,
"Darling, I could look after you wonderfully on almost three hundred
pounds a year. On twc hundred pounds, if necessary. Honestly, David, I
am not sc extravagant. We could manage. All we want is a very small
place--two rooms even. I can learn to cook. And this year I've
discovered how to save money on clothes.

We could live simply. We don't need much if we have each other. We coulc
manage."

"There would be something rather hothouse about us if we couldn't manage
on almost three hundred a year," Davic agreed.

"But not attached to something like the F .0." I'm afraid. There's a
scale of living attached to jobs like that which is really crippling
unless you have enough money. Ii wouldn't be good for you or for me.
Penny--not as the individuals we want to be. Particularly when neither
of us believes that money is the proof of a man's worth. It is usefu to
make life easier, that's all. But it doesn't mean you are superior to
the chap who has less money.

This price value on a man is becoming more and more a kind of snobbery
just as silly as the older ones about family trees and lane ownership.
It is all perfectly ludicrous.

And you don't havf to indulge in vulgar ostentation to be a money snob:
there i; a particularly insidious kind of money snob, all very quiet
restrained, with fixed ideas of "what is done" and "what isn' done"

That is what we should have to battle against, darling and I just won't
waste my energy on that."

"You mean that " what is done" and " what isn't done" cost money?"

"Yes. Even on the quietest level. You can make little with cisms about
the new-rich who buy diamonds and cars an yards of paintings, and pride
yourself on being " poor" ii good taste. But that somehow always turns
out to mean that you wear correct clothes which certainly don't cost
thirt; shillings off the peg. And you like concerts and theatres which
never means you have gallery seats. And you are ; member of a club,
which isn't the Y.M.C.A. reading-room either. And the funny thing is
that if one hasn't the mone] to live on that " simple" scale the quiet
snobs who do live on it are inclined to think your tastes are all wrong,
just as they think that those who spend more money than they do are
vulgar in another way.

They talk, with a whimsical smile, of being poor these days. Poor ..

God, they don't even understand their own English language. Give them a
taste of really being poor, keeping a wife and children on thirty bob a
week, living four to a room: dirt, squalor, disease around you; no
holidays, no escape. Give them that. Penny, and watch them yell. I bet
they wouldn't be so quiet about it either as the millions who are really
poor." He paused, and then smiled and said," Sorry, Penny. Didn't mean
to get on to my soap-box. I was just trying to show you that if we tried
to live within our income our tastes would be considered wrong. They
would need, in order to be considered right, a little help from some
quiet gilt-edged bonds."

"But surely if people are doing the same kind -of jobs they can't be all
snobs about money? Surely some of rhem realize it is only a matter of
luck that they inherited or married money? That is nothing to be proud
of."

"Not all of them are snobs," David agreed. And then he said, with a wide
grin, "But it would be difficult for them to imagine that an evening at
the theatre on their standards can represent our food and laundry bills
for the week.

That's really my point. Penny. I don't think that it is good for anyone
to have to face that disguised competition. Hi man beings don't wear
very well when they have to pretend to live on a scale which would use
up three times the money they are actually paid."

"Then careers such as that become a kind of closed shop," Penny said
angrily.

"A very select trade union indeed. If you can't meet our economic
standards stay out. Which only means, doesn't it, that the country loses
in the long run? Yet you would think that a country would encourage its
young men with brains to marry and have children.

It is setting a kind of limit, isn't it, on the brain-power we could
develop?

"We aren't the only country that limits its choice. They all do, whether
it is by money or religion or politics. And you must remember that any
diplomat would only raise an eyebrow, perhaps not even that, and think,
"Limiting the country's choice? Nonsense. The best man wins, that's
all." And he'd straighten his tie, look bored with such childish ideas,
and he wouldn't even bother to listen to any argument about disguised
quotas. He got into his job by competitive examination, and so his
conscience is clear.

"How nice for him," Penny said. Then, more gently, "I suppose the truth
is that a man can face money worries by himself. With a wife--well,
there are other wives? Isn't that it, David? But what if that wouldn't
worry me? What if I'd |j| take them all on, and say "I

don't give a herring's leg whether you have a maid or two or three, or a
fur coat, a Paris hat, an Alix dress"? Really, David- ..."

"It would be much more like having stewed sausages three nights in a row
to make up for one evening of decent food and wine for a dinner-party.
No, thank you, darling. I'm damned if I'll play that game. Now let's
forget it.

I've buried the F .0. idea. What do you want to be? The wife of an oil
magnate or of a journalist?"

Penny smiled. As long as he is you it doesn't matter what my husband is,
she thought. And then she became very serious.

"What did your father say, David? And your tutor? Weren't they
disappointed?" They will blame me, she told herself unhappily.

"Oh, just slightly amazed for a moment or so," he said lightly.

"In any case, I might never have passed the F.O. entrance examinations,
or I might have been a rotten diplomat." He grinned, and put all the
memories of Chaundler's discussions with him this week quite out of his
mind. His father had not had time to reply to his long explanatory
letter; more discussions to come, there. Still, his father had liked
Penny when he had met her, and as long as David didn't concentrate on
money-grabbing, but developed a career with some idea of public service
behind it, his father would have no absolute objections. (His father was
developing almost a mania for his public-service idea: there was some
connexion between it and his complete belief in a coming breakdown in
civilization. That was almost a mania too. You could not mention Germany
now without starting a worrying argument. ) Yes, Penny and his father
had got on well together. Margaret, however, had been quite another
matter.

"My train leaves in sixty-five minutes," he said.

"What is it to be.

Penny? Big business or social consciousness?" He was watching her with a
smile, but his hand was tense oti the glass of wine.

"David," Penny's voice said gently, 'you can't possibly mean you want me
to choose."

"Why not? You've got to live with it for the rest of your life."

"But if a man is unhappy in his job he won't do much good work. You know
what you want. You always know." She laughed then.

"You know so well what you really want, David."

"Yes." His eyes held hers.

"I know." After that pause he said, "But, to return to the job and,
after all, it is a luxury to be able to discuss two possible jobs in a
depression where even one is hard to find, so we might as well enjoy any
luxuries we have what do you think, Penny?"

"I think  ..." she began, and then stopped short. She looked at his
uncertainly. If only she could make the right choice, the choice he
wanted.

"You don't really worry about having a lot of money, do you, David? I
mean, as long as we have oh, David, I really could run our house
beautifully on three hundred pounds a year."

"Why do you choose Fairbairn?" he asked. He tried to keep his voice
impersonal, to keep his delight out of it.

"Because well, because it really is your kind of thing, isn't it? The
work you are doing now at Oxford leads into it so naturally.

Fairbairn is one of the best economists we have, isn't he?" She looked
at David worriedly. Surely he hadn't already decided on the other job.
Had she made a mistake?" David, I wish you would do just as you really
want. I've spoiled one idea of yours already. Don't let me spoil this
one too. If you really want the oil thing, take it."

She looked quite unhappy.

He rose suddenly, came quickly round to her side of the table, and
kissed her vehemently. Her ribs felt as if they were broken.

"David!" she said, with delight, and the word came out in a gasp as he
suddenly freed her so that she could breathe again. He went quite calmly
back to his chair, as if he had only been opening a window.

Giuseppe, coming upstairs with a bowl of fruit and coffee, beamed with
approval and delight. He approached their table, and then hung back:
this wasn't just the right moment. Not that they would have noticed him
very much. The young man was now raising his glass of wine towards the
girl.

Giuseppe turned away and frowned fiercely at an interested table of two
men and a woman. Don't you smirk like that, signora, he thought: no one
would ever want to kiss you, even with all the lights out. And as for
the two signori, you didn't do so well for yourselves this Saturday
night: the best you could manage was this leather-faced, leather-hearted
woman to share between you. If anyone should be laughing at anyone else,
it certainly should not be you.

"Coffee?" he inquired, keeping his body so placed that he would block
their view.

The two men had the grace to realize their barbarism. They began talking
hurriedly about poetry. Poetry! Giuseppe thought. How could they pretend
to understand poetry when they did not even know it when they saw it? He
let the coffee he was pouring slop over on to their saucers. Not
frequent customers, anyway; and the tip, which the two men shared
between them too, no doubt, was always poor.

David was watching Penny with a smile. He had never been happier.

"To you," he said very quietly, and drained his glass.

Chapter Nineteen.

AFTERTHOUGHTS IN GOWER STREET.

Mr. Fane was in his dressing-room, but neither that nor his silence
deterred his wife from summing up the events of the day. She creamed her
face before the pink-shaded light on the elaborate dressing-table, and
kept up a continuous flow of comment. Mrs. Fane saw nothing peculiar in
the fact that Edward had long since given up the habit of answering her.
She tried to ignore a deepening wrinkle at the side of her mouth. It had
been a successful party, she told herself again.

"I'm quite exhausted. Still, it was a great success.

You didn't say how you liked my new suit. And how did you like Carol's
dress? Well worth the money, really. She did look well this evening. Did
you notice how George Fentonstevens quite monopolized her? What a pity
Lady Fentonstevens couldn't come--George said she was leaving for the
Riviera.

Never anywhere near her husband. All she does is spend his money."

She let that fact soak in. At least, I stay beside you, she thought, as
she wiped off the cleansing cream carefully. Then from an elaborately
fashioned jar she scooped some heavy cream, yellow with the sheep's fat
out of which it was made, scented with the essence of flowers. She
smeared it over her face, her eyes following the reflection of the
upward movements of her third finger as solemnly as if she were a
priestess sacrificing before an altar. Then she rested (five minutes for
the cream to penetrate), and her thoughts flickered back to Carol again
and to George. Dear George. It would be so suitable.

"Penelope Lorrimer," she said suddenly.

"What a surprise  ...  so unlike Mary Lorrimer. Extraordinary that
George should know her. And Billy remembered seeing her too. George was
describing the summer in Scotland. He and another man--David something
or other--visited Dr. MacIntyre  ...  David Bosfield, that's it. And
then Billy said, "That's who she is." Do you know. Billy has seen her
dining in the George on Sundays with this Bosfield person? George was
really most surprised.

He hadn't even known! Personally I think the whole thing looks very odd.
I wonder if Mary Lorrimer has even heard of this man Bosfield?"

Mattie Fane picked up a delicately shaped bottle and poured its verbena
fragrance on to some cotton-wool. She began to smooth away the
glistening cream, leaving enough round the wrinkles to help them through
the night.

"He does sound peculiar, if you ask me. Billy says he is one of those
Labour speakers in the Union debates." She shook her head in disapproval
and moved across the thick turquoise-blue carpet towards her
silk-covered bed.

"Why didn't she say who she was?" she asked indignantly of the mirrored
ceiling. And imagine Essex Rockfort walking away from Carol, and asking
who was the girl with the dark auburn hair. Auburn! Plain brown with a
henna rinse.

"Are you coming to bed, Edward?" she called sharply, and tied up her
chin-strap.

He was thin and he stooped, and his eyes narrowed when he didn't wear
his glasses. He didn't speak, because he was conscious of his empty
gums--his teeth were now smiling charmingly in a crystal tumbler of
antiseptic fluid on his dressing-table--and a long, thin strand of grey
hair fell away from the bald crown of his head. She watched him with a
sense of dissatisfaction.

His age told hers. But she wasn't really old. Men just aged more quickly
than women.

Edward Fane climbed heavily into his bed, with the boredom of a man who
has long learned to expect no pleasure | there.

"Good night, Mattie," he said, and closed his eyes. Duty done for the
day.

"Good night, darling." Mrs. Fane's voice sounded strangled, but
chin-straps had to be tight. She swallowed her sleeping tablets and
switched off her lamp. The fireplace glowed gently in the warm darkness.

The strangled voice said suddenly, "Mary Lorrimer and I were very good
friends. We still are. I think I shall write her soon." Really, one owed
it to one's friends to watch their daughters as carefully as one's own.

"Where's Carol to-night?" Edward Fane asked unexpectedly.

"Out. With Eleanor."

There was a mild grunt for answer, and then silence.

Mattie Fane listened to her husband's heavy breathing, and began to
compose the letter to Mary Lorrimer.

"We were quite delighted to see Penelope. How she has changed amusing how
quickly girls adopt London clothes and mannerisms! By the way, you never
mentioned the young man at Oxford. Or were you keeping it as a surprise?
Do write and tell me about him and his family. How excited you must be!
I heard that he was very political, practically a Communist, but I am
sure that was only gossip, for I know you and Charles are such strict
Conservatives."

Yes, she thought drowsily, I must bring that in. Perhaps not quite so
crudely. And then I can give her news about Carol, about the wonderful
success she has been having since she was presented last year. Perhaps
just a hint about George Fenton-Stevens. Perhaps. After all, Carol would
probably be engaged and married long before Penelope Lorrimer. After all
.

At that point the sleeping tablets justified the money paid for them,
and Mrs. Fane's worries were tucked up for the night.

Penny, as she climbed the darkened staircase to her room that night,
remembered that she had never had time, after all, to explain to David
about the Fane party. But it had become less important in face of all
the news that David had brought with him.

She was still slightly dazed by it: for months she had accustomed
herself to having no definite idea of the future, and then suddenly,
to-night everything had begun to take a definite shape. Not that
everything was settled, as David had been very careful to point out.

No job was settled, until he had taken his Finals and had produced a
good First. But everything was as settled as it could be at this stage:
it was certainly more settled than it had been last week.

Penny began to hum, and then stopped short and smiled as an angry voice
called, "Shut up, there!" from one of the rooms which was already in
complete darkness. That was some one who had had a very dull Saturday
night.

Penny removed her black dress carefully, noticed the creased skirt, and
was reminded of her mother, who hated cheap clothes because they wore so
badly.

Well, she thought resignedly, she would just have to reach the
ironing-board on Monday before Neri installed herself there. She pulled
on a woollen sweater and tweed skirt, and over that went her flannel
dressing-gown, for it was miserably cold in these upstairs rooms at
night. She placed the small electric fire as near her ankles as was
safely possible, sat down at the brown wood table, adjusted a wad of
paper under its short leg so that it would stop rocking as she wrote.

Marston and Bennett, returning from the dance at College, saw the light
under Penny's door.

"Are you visible?" Marston asked, as she came in.

"I'm perfectly decent, if that's what you mean," Penny said, and covered
the envelope's address negligently with a piece of blotting-paper.

"Not writing himi' Bennett said.

"Why we thought you had gone out with him tonight."

"I was just writing some letters," Penny said carelessly, avoiding
Marston's eyes; she rose from the desk and rubbed her cold hands.

"I

don't know how your circulation gets on with these tuppeny electric
fires, but I go to bed each night wrapped up like a cocoon."

"A cardigan wrapped round one's legs does help sleep," Bennett said.

At the mention of the word she yawned, twisting her sweetly pretty face
into a strange distortion, and ruffled her hair, curling hair with one
of her nicely manicured hands.

"I had a marvelous time to-night. A medical from the West Indies danced
with me all evening. The most divine tango." "So I guessed," Marston
said.

"You danced a tango no || matter what the band played."

"Well, if you really are dancing a good tango  ..." Bennett shrugged her
shoulders. She was thoughtful for a moment. And then she gave one of her
small, high-pitched laughs and sat down on the bed.

"You know," she said, "I've often wondered whether a man who dances
divinely with you, so that it just seems impossible to make one mistake
while you are following him, might not be a good man to marry. That
could be a very good test, couldn't it?

What do you think, Marston?"

"I'm too tired to play guessing games," Marston said sharply, and caused
Bennett's thin, delicate eyebrows to rise in a half-circle.

"You certainly are becoming an expert on dancing, anyway: this is the
fifth night you've been out this week. And don't go to sleep on
Lorrimer's bed. I only came in to ask if she had a good time tonight."

"You obviously didn't," Bennett said. And, contented with the sharp
truth of that remark, she stretched herself comfortably on the bed.

"How did you get on, Lorrimer?" she asked curiously.

"I had a marvelous time," Penny said.

"Well," Marston said, her voice not troubling to hide its relief,
'that's a load off my chest."

"What is all this about, anyway?" Bennett asked, with sudden interest.

"Look," Marston said, 'it is time we all went to bed--our own beds.

Come on, Bennett. No one can be as tired as all that." "I tire very
easily," Bennett said, with more dignity than her legs showed as they
were swung on to the floor.

"You look as fresh as a daisy, Lorrimer. All that porridge, I suppose,
and heather and things." She increased the roll of her r's. She rather
fancied her Scots accent. (When she had first met Penny--or, rather,
after she had learned Penny came from Scotland, for at first she had not
been altogether sure where Penny did come from--she had giggled and
said, "Oh yes ... It's a braw brickt moonlickt nickt the nickt." And she
had looked so pleased with herself that Penny, in spite of her
amazement--for what would Bennett have said if Penny had given an
imitation of her idea of a Lancashire comedian just because Bennett came
from some place near Manchester? --had found her annoyance tinged with
amusement. ) But to-night nothing could irritate Penny. She said, "I
feel like some one who can afford to refuse a thousand a year."
"Hyperbole Lorrimer," Bennett said, with a laugh.

"Either that or it's the First Stage ...  To-morrow, you will be
scattering rue and rosemary from a little basket, and we'll have to
watch all ponds."

Her arms began to make the appropriate motions.

Marston said, "See you to-morrow, Lorrimer." She looked pleased, knowing
now that the evening had indeed been a success. She caught Bennett
firmly by the arm.

"Look, will you stop being Ophelia and start imitating Lady MacBeth
along that corridor?" The door closed, and the house was silent again.

It was midnight now, and Gower Street was deserted. It seemed a dead
street in a dead town. Yet, only a few hundred yards away, was a bright,
noisy thoroughfare; in the centre of the city the lights and bright
signs turned the night into an electric day; people in thousands, there,
were walking slowly in the tightly jammed throngs.

Penny turned away from the window, and began to pour cold water from the
jug into the wash-basin on its hideous stand behind the faded cotton
screen. The deep silence from the house all around her seemed to
increase: each small noise in her room--the clatter of her toothbrush on
the marble top of the wash-stand, the sound of the water as her hands
dipped into the basin, the rattle of the soap-dish as its top slipped--
was magnified into strange disproportion.

She realized suddenly what frightened her about this house. Too many
women.

Too many women, crowded into the drawing-room and library, trying to
look as if this were all a normal kind of life, as if they could go on
living this way indefinitely. Too many women all shut into lonely little
rooms. All pretending to be so gay, so unworried, so intelligent, or so
earnest. All pretending that life was quite simple, easily solved either
by hard work or by plenty of fun. Now, in the bleak, lonely rooms, the
worries were being reviewed, for women always did their worst worrying
at night. Strange how normal they could be all evening, and then as soon
as a they went to bed they lay and worried. Worries about work | that
was delayed and examinations coming soon; worries ; about men and
parties and complexions and clothes and figures and families and
quarrels and pocket-money over- | drawn; worries about what was going to
happen after this | June, or the next June, or whatever June ended this
waiting | period of their lives.

That was the main trouble--this waiting, ; this terrifying feeling of
uncertainty, all emphasized by the loneliness and the silence of night.

To-morrow morning the pretences would be back with the bright smile and
casual greeting. ; Or perhaps the main trouble. Penny thought, as she
un- | dressed with expert speed to escape the coldness of her room, is
that we try to be independent creatures, and we are not. We are
dependent on others.

And mostly, if we would only be honest enough to admit it, we are
dependent on men. They give us the balance that we need. She smiled as
she imagined the professional feminist's retort to such an admission.
She laughed as she realized she could no longer be convinced by that
retort. Perhaps, she thought, I never really wanted to believe the
feminists, and that is why I backslide so easily. Last year she had
thought of her future mainly as a career of painting, with her family
and friends and some rather attractive men--perhaps even one man in
particular (she had always imagined him as some one with fair hair, blue
eyes, very perfect features, and a terrific reputation as an athlete and
sportsman)--forming an interesting background.

But now she thought about David more than she thought about herself, and
that was quite a lot judging herself as an average human being. Now the
whole perspective had shifted. It was his career which now worried and
excited her. Her own had become identified with his.

"Oh, David," she suddenly said aloud, and the darkness and silence
deepened the emotion in her voice.

She lay thinking about David, about the way he would look at her or
speak to her, about all the things he had told her to-night. She laughed
softly and hugged herself with happiness. No wonder she had forgotten to
tell him about the Fanes' party. That had been a small incident, a
trivial one; she probably would never see or hear from them again. She
dismissed them with a long, lazy yawn. She fell asleep thinking of much
more important things.

Chapter Twenty.

DAVID IN OXFORD.

Mrs. Pillington's lodgings, where David had found rooms for his final
year, were in a row of grey stone houses, sharp- gabled, small-windowed,
in one of those deceptive Oxford lanes which slip away from the street,
twist over rounded cobblestones, promise a short-cut to the unsuspecting
stranger, and bring him up--just as he is congratulating himself on his
astute sense of direction--against high stone walls.

Mrs. Pillington was considered a fairly decent sort by most of the
undergraduates who had taken lodgings with her. She was Yorkshire by
birth, and she remembered her husband, now that he was dead, with a good
deal of pleasure. She had been thoroughly educated in bringing up three
outsize sons two in the Navy and one a policeman in London), and a
pretty daughter who had now left Oxford, with virtue intact, for a job
in Reading Hospital. She provided substantial meals at very little more
than what you might expect to pay; the rooms were dusted almost every
day; and the College regulations were stretched as far as they would go
without actually being broken for those who, she had decided, were 'nice
and agreeable." Those she disapproved of--well, that was a different
story. Mr. Pomfrey, for instance, even if he did have the most expensive
room on the first floor, also had a taste for slightly tarnished
blondes. So he was kept very strictly to the regulations, and he was
reported to the authorities for the least infringement. And Mr. Wichell,
on the first floor back, would not have his room next term no matter
what he offered to pay: the esoteric tastes he shared with his small
group of friends had decided that. But Mr. Fillerton, on the second
floor front, was another sort altogether, and so was Mr. Bosworth, on
the second floor back, even if they did like parties, loud gramophone
records, too many beer-bottles lying about, and a lot of misplaced
objects all over the room. Men, she had discovered in the last twenty
years, were peculiar: even more peculiar than Mr. Pillington had been.
And if no man could be a hero to his landlady, he could at least be
classified as normal or undesirable.

To-day was the last day of February, complete with grey sky and a
feeling of dampness hanging in the raw air. Mrs. Pillington had gone out
into the small back garden to see what damage the heavy rain had done
that morning. She was wearing her late husband's galoshes and a
shapeless tweed coat which had once belonged to her youngest son. She
was bending over one of the narrow flower-beds, a stiff, square shape
figure, quite unconscious that 'her Mr. Bosworth' was watching her from
his high window. He was waiting for Fenton-Stevens to come to see him.
They had meant to walk out to the Rose Revived this afternoon, but the
weather had postponed that idea to a day when the view could be enjoyed.
They had compromised with beer and a talk in David's rooms at five
o'clock.

David had stopped his work promptly on the hour, added a lump of coal to
the fire in the small black grate, and searched for that new number of
transition which he had promised to lend Fenton-Stevens.

George always borrowed the books and magazines which he thought he ought
to read, and left them lying about his room. ) Then he had walked over
to the window and looked over the garden's high grey wall.

In a few weeks there would be a sprinkling of green over these black
skeletons of trees, now dripping so mournfully that the sodden earth
underneath was perforated with little holes like a nutmeg-grater. And
the stone walls would come to life, with their particles of quartz and
mica reflecting the spring sunshine, turning their cold colour to a
golden grey.

A movement from the garden below caught David's eye, and he watched Mrs.
Pillington with a smile as she tried to straighten the stalks of the
first few crocuses which the malicious sparrows had pecked, so that the
heavy yellow and purple heads had fallen forward with broken necks on to
the black earth. She took a large handkerchief out of the coat's deep
pocket,. wiped the muddied petals, and propped the flowers against their
stiff spear-like leaves. Then she suddenly hurried down the muddy path
to the house.

That must have been George arriving.

David turned away from the window and opened the door. He heard George's
leisurely footsteps mounting the steep wooden stairs. They had not seen
much of each other this year. George had increased his clubs and
activities in an attempt to enjoy everything while it could still be
enjoyed. Next year he would spend abroad, cramming hard for the Foreign
Office examinations as well as acquiring a Touraine accent in French. He
had given up all hope of getting a First at Oxford, and had decided that
a decent Second would just carry him through. David, on the other hand,
had cut down most of his activities beyond debating at the Union and
paying occasional visits to the Music Rooms in Holywell: this year he
would make sure of that damned First, and next year he could relax and
enjoy himself with the Fairbairn job assured. It was a difference of
technique based entirely on the little black figures in a bank account.
But George's broad grin, his easy way of strolling into David's
sitting-room, his casual greeting, the way he selected the more
comfortable armchair quite naturally, all proved he certainly did not
feel a stranger.

"Sorry I'm late, old boy," he said cheerfully, stretching his legs over
the hearth rug and reaching for his pipe in his pocket.

"That's all right. I had some odds and ends of work to clear up. What
will you have? You look pretty thirsty."

George's face was still a deep red in colour.

"I am. Beer, I think. I fixed up a game of squash with McLllwain when
our walk had to be put off, and he chased me all round the court. Too
good for me. I've been trying to cool off in the tub ever since. Still
have a boiled-lobster look, I'm afraid. Thanks." He took the beer-glass
and looked at David more critically.

"You aren't playing enough squash this term." He frowned towards the
desk: too many damned books and papers there. And a large photograph.
His interest quickened.

"Oh, I get a game when I need it. I've been doing a lot of walking
instead.

I like fresh air."

"I've seen you several times in the distance keeping up with old
Chaundler.

He covers the ground at a surprising rate, doesn't he? I wonder if I'll
be able to do ten miles in two and a half hours when I'm his age. To be
perfectly frank, I'd hate to do it even now. And what do you talk about,
anyway, when you are tearing along beside him? About his book? Eight
years on the loom, isn't it? And probably another eight to go. Not my
cup of tea at all."

"No, not about his book," David said.

"Walter doesn't talk much about himself ever." He paused, and then, as
George was still waiting, he added on impulse, trying to keep his voice
very diffident, "We've been talking a good deal about the possibilities
after June is over, and what I should do."

"I thought Chaundler was quite determined to have you in thef .0.,
wasn't he?"

"In a way, yes. But something else is brewing at the moment."

George stared, and then recovered sufficiently to say with a smile, "Is
it connected with your work, or are you going to branch out as a film
magnate or a hat-designer?"

David smiled too.

"It's connected with economics all right. Edward Fairbairn is behind
it."

"Oh!" George was obviously impressed. Not that he altogether approved of
Fairbairn--one of those brains which never would leave well enough
alone, always finding out things that called for reforms and that kind
of unnecessary monkeying about. Still, it was a name that made you sit
up and take notice.

"That might work out very well for you," he said.

With luck."

"Well, here's luck and plenty of it!" George raised his glass of beer.

"Is Chaundler with you or against you in this?"

"He's with me--after we talked it over together." Chaundler had been
told about Penny. That had been a difficult ten minutes; but, as it
turned out, it had been an argument that Chaundler had listened to with
a good deal of unexpected sympathy. David had wondered then if Chaundler
had not been faced with something of the same kind of problem when he
had become a don: it was only quite recently that the colleges had
relaxed the monastic tradition that made them insist on the junior dons'
remaining unmarried for several years.

That might be the full explanation of the photograph in MacLntyre's
study in Inchnamurren. It was strange how well you could know some one,
and yet not know of the tragedies in his life, of the regrets which,
though buried away, were still strong enough to affect his judgments.

"He must have been disappointed," George was saying.

"He I likes to pick out future diplomats and mould them into shape.
That's rather his thing, isn't it? He has quite a small collection of
his young men now in the F.O." and they all do well. A bit on the
radical side, of course. That's why he takes no interest in me, I
suppose."

There was a pause. David kicked the lump of coal on the fire to break it
up into small warm fragments. George's eye travelled to the photograph
on the desk, and this time--with David's back half turned--he could look
at it long enough to recognize it. He cleared his throat and said, "I
was at Fane's party in town last Saturday. Do you remember Penelope
Lorrimer? She was there. She is looking simply marvelous these days. An
absolute peach."

David turned round and smiled.

"Yes, isn't she?"

George waited, but David's smile only broadened. George cleared his
throat again, reached for the bottle of beer, and became intent in
pouring it foamlessly into the tilted glass. He looked up in surprise as
David began to laugh.

"Well, what's wrong?" he asked, with a touch of indignation.

"Nothing at all. I was only admiring your tact." George said, "I may as
well admit that it is being severely strained at the moment.

Frankly I am curious." He rose and went over to the desk and studied the
photograph quite openly.

"Very nice, too. But what's the idea of hiding her away from your
friends?"

"Instinctive self-protection," David answered.

"I've watched you, old boy. You've a wonderfully absorbing technique
with pretty girls." "Rot," George said, but he was pleased all the same.

"It certainly didn't work on Saturday, anyway. Asked her to dinner. She
turned me down flat."

"Did she?" David was delighted, and he couldn't hide it.

"You are pretty far gone, aren't you?" George said.

"That's the trouble about taking things too seriously, you know. I've
warned you before about that." He kept a half-joking note in his voice,
but he glanced sharply, worriedly, at David. After all, there was a big
difference for a man between falling in love and being seriously in
love.

"Hello, I see you've got that new edition of Housman." He picked up the
book from the desk. Nice type and paper: that would be something safe to
talk about. And then he saw the written inscription: "To D., with all my
love.

P."

David, standing beside the fireplace with one elbow resting on the
mantelpiece, was watching him at the desk with an undisguised smile.

For George's tact had failed him for once: his amazement was quite
plain.

Only for a moment, though.

When he turned away from the desk he was being interested, in his
charming way, in the room.

"You've made yourself comfortable here, haven't you?" George asked, and
David agreed. The room might be shabby, but it was comfortable.

"My own digs are getting on my nerves," George went on.

"They are so damned convenient for every one to find. Can't settle at
all to get any work done. People keep dropping in, you know. The traffic
is almost as bad as it is outside in the High."

"Well, you are sort of a convivial chap," David said.

"And an address in the High has its advantages too," he added
ironically.

"It is central," George admitted, 'and the food is decent. It has its
points." He conceded them so readily that David knew George's first
criticism were not to be taken too seriously. They had only been
George's way of trying to compliment David on his rooms, of trying to
make David feel that expensive lodgings were something not to be envied.
It was only by such small self-depreciations that George ever showed he
had a touch of guilt that he should have life made easier for him than
the majority of men at Oxford.

And it was all completely unconscious. His whole upbringing had prepared
him to take every helping of double whipped cream for granted. But every
now and again the little touch of self- depreciation showed some deeply
buried subconscious realization. (A visit abroad was always 'a little
holiday." Gadgets, such as his open touring car, were always picked up
for 'an absolute song." He was now looking for a flat in London where he
could escape from the family: 'just a small place, probably in some
mews." He would no doubt decide on a flat, converted from a chauffeur's
house in central Mayfair, and every one would be told exactly what it
once had been. ) "When I came here," George was now saying, "I had the
idea of asking you to lunch on Sunday." He looked towards the
photograph.

"Can that be managed?" "I'm afraid not," David said definitely.

"That is what I expected. Pane said that it was your day for wenching."
"What does he know about it?" David asked angrily.

"Oh, he has seen you regularly at the George, I believe. He remembered
that detail towards the end of his party. His mother seemed quite
amazed. I think Eleanor was too."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

This invitation to luncheon. It is a command performance really.

Eleanor telephoned to-day to say that she and Carol Fane were coming up
here next week-end. She wanted to see you particularly."

"I'm sorry," David said, with no disappointment at all, 'but I'm afraid
I am engaged all this weekend." They both laughed, and George said, "If
you ask me, Eleanor only had her competitive instinct aroused by seeing
Penelope."

Did they meet?"

"Not actually. But they saw each other. Penelope said she was in a
frightful hurry and couldn't meet Eleanor. Didn't seem to notice her at
all.

Very remote, I thought. But some people are like that."

"Yes," David agreed. Some people are like that. But not Penelope
Lorrimer.

He was delighted: his vanity was ridiculously nattered. For Penny knew
about Eleanor Fentonstevens. He had told Penny, and Penny had never
brought up the subject again. And that was a sign, he had thought, that
Penny really practised the peculiar belief she had--that jealousy was
stupid, unnecessary, and crippling. It had often made him feel still
worse when he was going through one of his bad spasms of jealousy.
Sometimes, too, he had wondered how anyone could be deeply in love
without being jealous. Now, as George's politely surprised voice still
echoed in his mind, David knew that Penny had her own way of
acknowledging jealousy. He was pleased out of all proportion to the size
of this crumb of comfort.

George watched his friend's face thoughtfully. He is far gone, George
thought, with a mixture of amazement and worry.

"Well," he said, and he was not referring to Eleanor's party, "I see
that is that."

"Yes," David said. That's that."

George pretended to be studying the ring of foam which had collected in
his glass, in spite of all his precautions.

"Look, old man, I'd like to meet Penelope. Properly. I hardly know her.

I'd like to see her some time. After all----" he halted in
embarrassment.

"After all, what?" David asked bluntly. There was a particularly keen
look in his eye which was disconcerting.

"Oh, nothing ...  Even if I did think you were taking everything a
little too seriously it wouldn't have the least effect on you, would
it?"

"You are bloody well right," David said cheerfully.

"Well, at least when I do meet her again I'll have enough sense not to
ask her out to dinner." "You are bloody well right there too," David
said vehemently.

George hid his surprise, but it remained with him after they had begun
to talk about other things, about the recent crop of plays at the
Repertory Theatre, about the newest Marx Brothers' film showing at the
Super, about the latest story concerning the Proctor and his bulldogs.
It was a story about Pomfrey downstairs. George insisted on telling it,
and David, who had heard it two days ago, kept a tactful silence. In any
case, every one was going to hear it being told (and told not so well as
one could tell it oneself) for the next week or so.

George had just reached the climax, when two visitors arrived: Burns,
American, tall, and smiling, with a loose tweed suit and fair hair cut
so very short that to the unaccustomed British eye he seemed to be
permanently astounded; Marain, thin and dark, with a gentle voice and
savage phrases.

Marain switched on the light.

"Or do you prefer to be romantic?" he asked.

George halted in embarrassment. He liked Burns, decent chap, played a
good game of lacrosse, even if it was the sort of thing that girls
played at school. But Marain was another cup of tea. Too bitter a brew
for George.

He couldn't swallow Marain. Strange taste in friends David had. That was
the trouble with David. You never knew whom you might meet in his rooms.
No doubt Burns and Marain had come to talk politics: Marain talked of
little else.

"Do go on," Marain was saying, with that smile of his that George never
could stand.

George eyed the mocking face. Marain always gave him a feeling of being
challenged. He had lost interest in telling the story, but he was
determined to finish it now. He cleared his throat.

"Pomfrey," he began, and then wished he had not accepted the challenge.

He cursed himself for the nervousness which paralysed him for a moment.

"Pomfrey," he went on evenly, 'was strolling down the High last Saturday
with one of his blondes from Reading." (His voice, his face, his
comfortably sprawling body seemed extremely controlled and confident, so
that Burns, watching this specimen of young animal, thought of him as
the typical example of unjustified English superiority which irritated
all foreigners to the point of pushing them into print about it.) " A
silly thing to do, really, because she is well known. He was stopped, of
course, by one of the bulldogs with upraised bowler. The Proctor came up
and said, "Mr. Pomfrey, would you introduce your companion to me?"
Pomfrey said, "This is my sister." The Prog recovered his breath.

"Mr. Pomfrey, you know this woman is on the University black-list." And
Pomfrey said gently, "Yes, we know. Mother and I are frightfully upset
about it."

They all laughed except Marain. He, of course, had known the story
already.

George had become aware of that halfway through the telling.

He rose suddenly, placing his unfinished glass of beer on the
mantelpiece.

"Good-bye, David. What about dinner some time next week?

Good. We'll arrange that."

George gave an easy smile all round, and as he closed the door firmly
behind him he took a deep breath of relief. David was a very decent
chap, even if his politics were impossible, but why did he have such
peculiar friends?

Burns was all right. Except that he went about too much with Marain. He
had certainly got in with the wrong crowd if he really wanted to
understand England. Once Burns had admitted frankly that the most
difficult thing he had to learn at Oxford was the English. What was it
that David had said last summer?

"We are becoming a nation of professional eccentrics. Foreigners provide
us with a stage, and we enjoy our little appearances all the more
because we convince every one, including ourselves, that we don't even
notice the audience." George frowned for a moment, and then he laughed
to himself.

That was just David being David. Odd fellow, David, and yet likable. But
he wasn't normal: falling heavily in love, wanting to get married,
giving up all idea of the Foreign Office. Definitely not normal.

George swung his long leg over his bicycle--his driving "After all,
what?" David asked bluntly. There was a particularly keen look in his
eye which was disconcerting.

"Oh, nothing ...  Even if I did think you were taking everything a
little too seriously it wouldn't have the least effect on you, would
it?"

"You are bloody well right," David said cheerfully.

Well, at least when I do meet her again I'll have enough sense not to
ask her out to dinner."

"You are bloody well right there too," David said vehemently.

George hid his surprise, but it remained with him after they had begun
to talk about other things, about the recent crop of plays at the
Repertory Theatre, about the newest Marx Brothers' film showing at the
Super, about the latest story concerning the Proctor and his bulldogs.
It was a story about Pomfrey downstairs. George insisted on telling it,
and David, who had heard it two days ago, kept a tactful silence. In any
case, every one was going to hear it being told (and told not so well as
one could tell it oneself) for the next week or so.

George had just reached the climax, when two visitors arrived: Burns,
American, tall, and smiling, with a loose tweed suit and fair hair cut
so very short that to the unaccustomed British eye he seemed to be
permanently astounded; Marain, thin and dark, with a gentle voice and
savage phrases.

Marain switched on the light.

"Or do you prefer to be romantic?" he asked.

George halted in embarrassment. He liked Burns, decent chap, played a
good game of lacrosse, even if it was the sort of thing that girls
played at school. But Marain was another cup of tea. Too bitter a brew
for George.

He couldn't swallow Marain. Strange taste in friends David had. That was
the trouble with David. You never knew whom you might meet in his rooms.
No doubt Burns and Marain had come to talk politics: Marain talked of
little else.

"Do go on," Marain was saying, with that smile of his that George never
could stand.

George eyed the mocking face. Marain always gave him a feeling of being
challenged. He had lost interest in telling the story, but he was
determined to finish it now. He cleared his throat.

"Pomfrey," he began, and then wished he had not accepted the challenge.

He cursed himself for the nervousness which paralysed him for a moment.

"Pomfrey," he went on evenly, 'was strolling down the High last Saturday
with one of his blondes from Reading." (His voice, his face, his
comfortably sprawling body seemed extremely controlled and confident, so
that Burns, watching this specimen of young animal, thought of him as
the typical example of unjustified English superiority which irritated
all foreigners to the point of pushing them into print about it.) " A
silly thing to do, really, because she is well known. He was stopped, of
course, by one of the bulldogs with upraised bowler. The Proctor came up
and said, "Mr. Pomfrey, would you introduce your companion to me?"
Pomfrey said, "This is my sister." The Prog recovered his breath.

"Mr. Pomfrey, you know this woman is on the University black-list." And
Pomfrey said gently, "Yes, we know. Mother and I are frightfully upset
about it."

They all laughed except Marain. He, of course, had known the story
already.

George had become aware of that halfway through the telling.

He rose suddenly, placing his unfinished glass of beer on the
mantelpiece.

"Good-bye, David. What about dinner some time next week?

Good. We'll arrange that."

George gave an easy smile all round, and as he closed the door firmly
behind him he took a deep breath of relief. David was a very decent
chap, even if his politics were impossible, but why did he have such
peculiar friends?

Burns was all right. Except that he went about too much with Marain. He
had certainly got in with the wrong crowd if he really wanted to
understand England. Once Burns had admitted frankly that the most
difficult thing he had to learn at Oxford was the English. What was it
that David had said last summer? We are becoming a nation of
professional eccentrics. Foreigners provide us with a stage, and we
enjoy our little appearances all the more because we convince every one,
including ourselves, that we don't even notice the audience." George
frowned for a moment, and then he laughed to himself.

That was just David being David. Odd fellow, David, and yet likable. But
he wasn't normal: falling heavily in love, wanting to get married,
giving up all idea of the Foreign Office. Definitely not normal.

George swung his long leg over his bicycle--his driving 187' licence had
been suspended last week after a normal argument with a normal haystack
at the normal speed of sixty-five miles an hour--and pedalled his way
briskly to his normal rooms in the High. There would be a decent dinner
at the Grid to-night, and it would probably work up to some fun in the
Quad afterwards round a bonfire. There were at least two chaps disliked
enough this term to have the furniture in their rooms supply firewood.
And that little pipsqueak, with the green pullover and the lisp, who
quoted Mallarme at you would have to be de bagged Matter of discipline.
All perfectly normal.

Yes, George decided, as he found the reflection in the looking-glass
quite satisfactory and shook out a crisply laundered handkerchief to
slip into his cuff, yes, it was going to be a very pleasant evening. All
normal chaps there, thank God.

Chapter Twenty-one.

POST-MORTEM ON FRIENDSHIP.

They listened to George's heavy brogue shoes clattering down the
staircase.

David put the copy of transition back in its place.

George, he was thinking, usually remembered things: he must have been
more rattled by Marain than he had looked.

"What's wrong with that guy, anyway?" Burns asked bluntly.

"Or are we typhoid-carriers?" "Oh, he's all right," David said.

Marain was wandering about the room now, picking up the invitation cards
standing on the mantelpiece, reading them with well-concealed interest
and apparent amusement. David watched him with a grin, and paused in
talking to Burns to remove some open letters and postcards out of
Marain's eyeshot.

"Against the rules, old man, when the owner is in his rooms," he
remarked, and turned to Burns again. Burns was smiling too. Marain
looked quite unperturbed, picked up a magazine, and sat down to read it.

"Go on about Fenton-Stevens," Burns said.

"What do you mean by all right?" Burns was a direct man who approached
arguments eagerly: he considered them the fair means for an exchange of
information.

"I've met him half a dozen times, and he always seems a fool. Very much
on his dignity, and nothing to be dignified about except what his father
has given him."

"Was Marain with you these half-dozen times?" David asked. Burns's
eyebrows went up at this new idea.

Marain looked away from the magazine.

"Why waste good breath on a first-rate fool? What do you see in such an
idiot, David?"

"Perhaps you have a bad effect on him," David said quietly.

"He paralyses me," Marain said.

"He has an infinite capacity for being tedious. He will do well in the
Foreign Office. One of our future policy-makers. God help us." He
adjusted his body comfortably in the best chair, poured himself some
beer, and turned a page of the magazine. He raised an eyebrow at some
statement which caught his eye, and dismissed the others from his
presence.

"That's my point," Burns went on.

"He thinks he is a natural for the governing classes. Right education,
right connexions, right everything. Does that make a man a natural for
anything except having himself a whale of a time? The life of Riley, ;'/
you can get it. And those who have it damned well see that they keep it
in the family.

Take a guy like this Fenton-Stevens. He and his crowd just represent
less than two per cent of the population: all the other ninety-eight per
cent don't talk like him or live his way. But he is convinced he is
typical of Britain, and so he and his friends have got to represent her.
Matter of duty, I suppose. It is also the life of Riley: better than
going down a mine, or delivering milk, or wearing the seat of your pants
out on a clerk's hard chair. They'll tell you, of course, that the miner
or the milkman or the clerk just haven't got the stuff it takes to do
the governing or save the country. How do they know that? Who told them
except themselves? If you ask me, this country is weighted down with its
dead wood--the "all right" guys who use up the best jobs. And you all
keep accepting it, instead of using an axe." "The trouble about using an
axe," David said, 'is that it may be used against you, and that isn't
according to plan. Perhaps Marain's next editorial would see him
installed in a neat six by-eight-foot cell. That is, if his political
opponents grabbed the axe before he could."

Marain looked up to say, "It is quite simple. David wants no action, and
is content to continue with things as they are, although it is against
his interests and the interests of forty million other people in this
country. They don't seem to understand where their interests lie. That's
all." That's all," David said, 'except that you did not state my case
accurately.

I want change too. But I believe that change will depend on just how
much the majority of us want something. If we are content with the
second best because it is " safe," then we shall just go on getting a
good second best.

So the decision really rests with all the forty million people Marain
pities so much. That's where I begin to disagree with him. I believe
that if there is to be a change they have to earn it for themselves. Not
by violence, but by thinking things out. Get an intelligent electorate,
and then an intelligent election, and soon there will be plenty of
house-cleaning.

Provided, of course, that the people go on thinking things out for
themselves.

As soon as they stop doing that, dead wood will collect again, no matter
what variety of political party is in power."

"He would have been a most converting missionary," Marain said to Burns,
and his annoyance sharpened when the American did not return his amused
smile.

Burns was, in fact, still watching David. Tt is getting rather late,"
Marain said suddenly, and rose to his feet.

"I'm giving dinner to Furness in Hall to-night. We are starting a new
magazine, and I was thinking of him as assistant editor. He is a sound
man in many ways."

And writes like a piece of boiled ham, David thought. No sense of the
use of the English language at all. Marain would be editor, of course:
Marain played second fiddle to no man.

"I thought of you," Marain went on, 'but you are frightfully busy this
year, aren't you?" And that meant that Marain had come here with the
idea of offering the job of assistant editor to David. I am being
disciplined, David thought. Really, Marain, you do like to crack the
whip. To hell with you!

Burns looked surprised at Marain's recent statements, and then he said
quickly, in embarrassment.

"We are calling it Experiment. Here's the blurb. Wrote it this morning."
He pulled out a folded sheet of typescript, which had already been
handled a good deal during its short life. David took it, and read it as
he was persuading himself that he had indeed no time to be editing a
magazine this spring.

"It isn't a purely Oxford affair," Burns was saying.

"There will be contributors from Cambridge and London. We hope."

"Better give the Cambridge men more space on the editorial board if you
want to keep them interested," David said, and then regretted his words.
For Marain's smile became real at his obvious annoyance.

"Hello," David said suddenly, in surprise.

"How did he get here?" He pointed to the name of Roger Breen.

"One of the London boys. Marain found him." Burns explained.

"He's financing us."

"You mean his father is. And his father won't like your magazine." "His
father can't read," Marain said.

"Look, Marain, why get involved with a man like Breen? He is only using
you politically as he is using his father financially."

Marain wasn't smiling now. Burns was looking at him questioningly, as if
he believed Bosworth. By attacking Breen, Bosworth was attacking his
judgment.

"I can deal with Breen," he said coldly.

"What's wrong with him, anyway?" Burns asked.

"He is only a name to me."

"He is one of my sister's friends," David said shortly.

"And Bosworth doesn't like him," Marain explained. Sister- fixation, his
amused eyebrow said.

"I know what I dislike," David said.

"He must be very grim," Marain said lightly.

"If it becomes fashionable among the so-called intelligentsia to wear
black shirts, Breen will be out there in front of them mimicking
Mussolini."

"And if it were fashionable to be a Liberal?"

David shook his head.

"There isn't enough violence in Liberalism for Breen," he said.

"He has a mountainous inferiority complex. He has got to justify himself
by extremes. He thinks strong methods prove strength. You know, if the
revolution he is always talking about did come, he wouldn't find that
position of power which he thinks he will get. He isn't good enough.
Funny to see all these self-appointed controllers being left in the rank
and file."

"Very funny," Marain said, but he looked at David sharply.

David was not only thinking of the Breens in this world, he knew.

David handed back the sheet of paper to Burns, who was silent but
interested.

He had become accustomed by this time to the peculiar English way of
argument, to the hidden conflict, the battle of innuendo, the gently
placed barbs. Marain perhaps was just annoyed that David was so damned
independent.

Marain usually dominated the men he met. Dominated? Burns looked at
Marain critically. He felt the blurb in his pocket, and remembered how
many of his suggessions for it had been side-tracked, so gently, so
smilingly. Hell, he thought, we'll see about this.

Burns rose to his feet.

"Must go now," he said to David. They exchanged smiles. Marain looked
slightly startled for one moment that he had not been the first to
leave.

And then he recovered himself, and with his usual brief farewell remarks
left the room. At least, he would be the first to do that.

It didn't matter to Burns. His grin broadened. As he went downstairs by
himself--Marain was showing his displeasure by walking determinedly on
ahead of him--he was crumpling the blurb for Experiment in his pocket as
he reminded himself to see more of Bosworth.

Chapter Twenty-two.

David listened to the dying footsteps, and thought about Marain. It was
a strange feeling to have decided so suddenly that friendship was no
longer friendship. Either Marain has changed or I have changed, he
thought. Once his clever-cruel quickness was amusing, even when it was
directed against me. Now he is becoming rather a bore: you can always
depend on him to make remarks in character every bit as much as
Fenton-Stevens. And he is becoming rather simple-minded: he judges
people by their politics.

That alone isn't enough. It isn't a man's political beliefs which make
him a good or bad man: it is the way he uses his beliefs, the actions
which his own humanity will make him do or refuse to do. Behaviour, not
belief, is the standard. A man may talk and talk, and be a fake. A man
may think he proves a lot by admiring poetry, smiling at children,
growing sentimental over charming songs, but he proves a lot more by
ignoring or tolerating violence and cruelty. (This is where Father would
start the fourth chapter of his lectures on the problem of Germany. ) If
Marain would only see the whole of a man, and not just--hell and
damnation, why waste any more of my energy in coping with Marain? I've
changed, David thought. I just don't give a damn what Marain thinks of
me. He felt like a man who has decided to clear out a lot of useless
furniture from his house and, equally amazed at his own temerity and at
the improvement, wonders why he postponed the decision so long. It seems
easy enough now that it has been made.

David picked up his letter to Penny which he would post on his way to
dinner in Hall. He began thinking about her, and a smile came to his
lips, and his whole face softened. He no longer felt dogmatic and stupid
and inadequate, as Marain had left him.

"You are a tonic, darling," he said to the photograph with its warm
smile and laughing eyes. And that was true, a fact which would seem
absurd to the cynical. He had only to start thinking about Penny, and
all his worries--his father's health, his work, his possible
inefficiency in his future job with Fair- baim if he got the job,
Margaret, the lack of money, himself, and what he believed or couldn't
believe--all these took proper proportion in his mind. He could face any
worry if he had Penny. He tried to remember the inflexion in her voice
when he had said something quite preposterous, and she would laugh and
say

"David!" half believing because it was he who had said it, half
sceptical as she saw the beginning of a smile in his eyes. He bent down
and kissed the photograph.

Outside the lane was dark and quiet. The row of tall, thin houses with
their deep, sharp-pointed roofs formed a curving wall of shadows,
pressing forward into the lane to blot it out. Round the corner the busy
little street was quietening, but there were still signs of life in it.
Later it would fall like the lane into its deep night sleep. (Streets
are like children, David thought: the small ones go to bed first. )
Patches of yellow light came from windows, wide open in spite of the
weather. There was the sound of voices and of gramophone records from
successful sherry parties which had forgotten dinner. On the pavement,
ahead of David and behind him, were the quick footsteps of
undergraduates who had delayed too long and now must hurry towards their
colleges. Like David, too, they wore no hat or overcoat, although there
was a dank cold in the air and a chill from the wet pavement.

They had slung round their necks, and over their shoulders, the crumpled
black cotton gowns (hip-length for commoners, knee-length for scholars)
which they must wear to enter their college dining-hall. Those whose
colleges were some distance away had borrowed bicycles, and were
pedalling determinedly up the imperceptible hill (you never noticed it
unless you were late) with bodies bent forward over the handlebars and
the black gowns slipping off their shoulders. David increased his pace:
he must be later than he had imagined. One always was, in Oxford.

This has all become a part of my life, he thought: I accept it as if it
were absolutely normal. At first it had seemed strange--the old houses
and crowding towers, the sky filled with medieval spires--and when it
had been strange there had been a constant but well-concealed admiration
and awe.

Every one felt that way to begin with. And then those who liked phrases
would begin to speak of wedding-cake architecture and bastard Gothic. It
wouldn't do any of us any harm, he suddenly thought, if we were made to
spend our fifth term in some manufacturing town with a Victorian
University raising its horrors in a street of smoke and grime. Beauty
deserved better than casual acceptance. Perhaps it was time to end this
stage of his life. He had a short stab of remorse as he realized he was
excited instead af saddened by the idea. For he had been happy here.

The bell was ending its three minutes' warning as he passed through the
vaulted portcullis gate into Holywell College. A handful of
undergraduates were still lingering in front of the notice boards on one
side of the deep entrance, and a couple were trying to borrow a gown for
Hall from the Porter's Lodge opposite. He entered the cloisters which
led round the green quadrangle, and then slackened his pace as he saw
the white-haired, shoulder-bent figure of the Senior Tutor in front of
him. Perhaps you had to be as old as the Senior Tutor to feel sadness
when a stage of your life was almost over, for then each stage could be
the final one.

The mournful bell slowed down, as if its strength were ebbing away, and
then stopped with a small, dim echo, leaving a foolish silence hanging
in the air.

There was a sudden rush of running footsteps behind David, as the men at
the notice- board scattered towards the Hall. The Senior Tutor's
flapping black gown disappeared into the Senior Common Room's doorway,
and David began running too. The large oak door was shut before he
reached it. This is what comes of thinking of old age, David reminded
himself, and waited with the others until Grace had been said and the
heavy door was opened once more. It would close again after the first
course had been served, and those who came then would have to find
dinner elsewhere.

David's sett was at the Scholars' table. McLllwain and Halsey had kept a
place for him, he noted, and remembered suddenly that they had arranged
to sit beside each other tonight. There was that matter of discussing
the programme for the next Musical Union concert, when Myra Hess had
been invited to play. He had forgotten all about it, and he had almost
turned away from the hall door as he had had to wait outside, and
probably would have if he had had enough loose cash in his pocket for a
dinner at the George or the Clarendon--he had given up signing cheques;
they had a way of giving you an extra sinking in the pit of your stomach
when you opened your bank statement.

But the clatter of plates as the scouts served the long tables at a
half-run four courses were served and eaten within thirty minutes)
helped to cover his momentary confusion.

"Thought you had forgotten," Halsey said cheerily, and joined David's
smile at such an impossibility.

David listened to McLllwain, talking with Scots intensity about the
merits of Bach and the demerits of Delius (Halsey being very pro-Delius
at the moment), but his mind followed its own direction.

Overhead the high ceiling formed a deep vault, dark and withdrawn.

The shaded table lamps lit up the rows of faces, intent on mulligatawny
soup and light remarks. (The two could go together it seemed. ) The
enormous fireplace at one side of the hall had its outsized portion of
tree-trunk as fuel, and the green baize screens were drawn to protect
the spines of those undergraduates whose bench was too near the fire
Those who sat at the other side of the room wore thick pull overs under
their tweed jackets to keep them warm. At the end of the hall, opposite
the doorway, was a raised dais when the dons' white shirts bulged
stiffly out from their low-cu dinner jackets. The junior Fellow, who
voted Labour and di< not believe in all that conspicuous nonsense, was
appearin; unnoticeable in his checked tweed jacket, red tie, and deter
mined nonchalance. The three Distinguished Guests of thi evening sat
with the dons and listened to the conversatiol which went evenly on, in
spite of the rising spate of noisi from the undergraduates' tables: the
voices always rose afte: the second course, when hunger was partly
abated by souj and fish.

David looked at the High Table, tried to distinguish thi three guests,
wondered what they thought about this zoo listened to Halsey beside him.

Once Halsey and McLllwaii started arguing it was rather like watching
two men sawin; sawdust. Still, they enjoyed it, and they never allowed
it to interfere with the decisions they had already agreed upon. I would
be Bach.

It would be the Chromatic Fantasia am Fugue. McLllwain and Halsey were
just working up to that it their own way. David had no objections: this
was an evenin; when he enjoyed being in a crowd of men and feeling corn
pletely alone. It was the only pleasant way of feeling alone To be
really alone and feel alone, that was the hour to b< avoided. Now this
separation of himself from the crowdec hall was a luxury: he could step
back into it when hi wanted. He watched the three D. G. "s without
appearing t( notice them, and wondered about them. At this moment the]
were alone too. Really alone in an inexplicable madhouse" Or just
feeling alone and comfortably amused as the; watched it?

Certainly the D. G. "s were less successful than the dons ir ignoring
the peculiarities of the young men. The most distinguished of them was a
professor from Germany, a Jew who had been declared intolerable, who
knew more than mos people could understand about nebulae. The small thin
from was the Middle East expert who combined exploring wit!

his thirty years of study of the Turkic group of languages The third D.
G. was a Permanent Under-Secretary: rathe: heavy-going, this one, as the
Senior Tutor afterwards remarked to his colleagues. But he, at least,
had been an undergraduate at Oxford and had known what to expect. He
might even be telling himself that undergraduates were not what they had
been. He certainly did not approve of the way they dressed. Thirty years
ago you could have told a man's income by the cut of his coat. The War
had made a lot of changes, a lot of changes. He looked at the junior
don's red tie, and then took comfort in the fact that the linen was
still excellent on the table and that the Charles II silver was
displayed.

He took further consolation in the rows of Queen Anne candlesticks and
the admirable Montrachet which he sipped from the crystal goblet
standing beside the Doulton plate. The Senior Common Room still had its
china specially made, he noted with satisfaction as he scraped up the
last mouthful of fillet and mushrooms, and reached the College arms. He
ignored the fact that the junior don was drinking beer like some
undergraduate, and concentrated on the fact that the beer was held by a
George II tankard. Perhaps George III. No, George" II.

The Turkic scholar was telling a very good story about a Rumanian
countess at a dinner-party in Vienna. He would have been amused if he
had known he was the only D. G. who had raised any comment. It had come
from one undergraduate sitting at the Hearties' table. (Those in
training for rowing sat at this separate table, where they had their
special beefsteaks and no starches. ) "Doesn't look as if he could have
lasted eight days in the desert with only a handful of dates, does he?"
The tone was derogatory, but the highest compliment was intended. No one
said anything about his lasting thirty years in Turkic languages.

The foreign nebulist merely looked slightly bewildered. Afterwards, in
talking to his friends, he would probably be very amused. At the moment
he was startled and shocked. All that waste of food, enough to feed a
hundred men in a concentration camp for a day. And the science don
beside him seemed to be determined to talk about some new experiments at
Cambridge with heavy water. Do as the Romans do, the refugee scholar
reminded himself, and tried to follow the almost inaudible English voice
at his elbow. But he flinched when a roll, and then a pat of butter, was
thrown through the air.

Now the circus has really begun, David was thinking.

There had been a pause in the running service of roast beef. The first
piece of roll had been thrown from one table to another, and a reply was
given in kind. Next, the pats of butter were catapulted from the blades
of table-knives. The first one sailed over his head, aimed at the table
behind him. Its near-victim retaliated, aimed too well, and was given a
sconce for his success. The quart of heavy ale, to be drunk without
pause for breath, was placed in front of him. He did not manage to drink
it all, and he had to pass it round the table--and pay for it, too--as
his forfeit. David smiled as he watched the Fresher's obvious chagrin at
his failure. And probably he had been practising for weeks in private.
David glanced again at High Table.

The nebula chap looked as if he were indeed in a fog, and the science
don was no doubt trying to explain the rules of sconcing to him, judging
by his increasing bewilderment. The Permanent Undersecretary looked
pleased for the first time this evening. ("At least they haven't changed
in some things," he was saying to himself. ) The Middle East man was the
least noticing of the three, being too interested in his story of the
Italian baroness in Constantinople. (His explorations were of a
diversified nature. ) The tide of Oxford reality slipped over David's
table. Halsey--who had carried on a continuous stream of conversation
from Delius to Ravel, from Ravel to ravishing Garbo, somehow from there
(unless under the barn under the boo under the bamboo-tree was as good a
place to be alone as anywhere) to T. S. Eliot, and then in one easy
bound to Kant and the Categorical Imperative, which brought him right
into the problem of his tailor's bill (the man had actually forgotten
half a dozen ties which had been bought six months ago)-- suddenly
halted. He stared with distrust and then dislike at the sweet set before
him. It was a strawberry jelly frozen to almost glacial hardness.

"Anemic liver," he said, picked it up in his hand, weighed it as if it
were a cricket ball, and then lobbed it down the table.

It was well caught, and thrown onward, and managed to pass three tables
before its final disintegration. The German nebulist leaned forward with
increasing interest. It was all becoming clear: the medieval tradition
of the lords seated on the dais, with the tumblers and clowns amusing
the henchmen down in the Hall. The unconscious tradition . it was all
becoming perfectly clear. He began speaking at incredible speed in
German to the science don, who had been unfortunate enough to admit that
he spoke that language, and who smiled and nodded when he felt the
meaning was beyond his vocabulary--just to keep the old boy happy. He
certainly did: there was a nice little footnote of five and a half pages
to be added to the dissertation on The Medieval Mind and Its Attack on
the Possibilities of Space, now in preparation.

An unreal world, David thought. It had become so natural to all of them
that, when they left it, they might find the world outside quite unreal
in its reality. He thought of the small flat which he and Penny would
have, forming their own world of two rooms and kitchen in some place
like Netting Hill. He compared it with all this--the high, vaulted hall,
carved and shadowed; the stone fireplace, which would be bigger than
their kitchen; the rows of gleaming silver, the hurrying servants; the
distinguished guests feeling their prominence at High Table, while the
undergraduates ignored them completely and the dons wished the Permanent
Undersecretary would finish his savoury and let them retire into the
Senior Common Room for dessert and port and--at last--a cigarette, or a
cigar, with a snifter of brandy. (The junior Fellow, who must serve
round the fruit in the Senior Common Room, was looking at his
wrist-watch covertly, wondering if he would get away in time to take his
wife to that picture which he had promised her. She would be sitting
over in his study in College now, after dining at home on scrambled eggs
and a baked apple. If only she would eat a decent meal by herself on the
four nights a week he had to put in an appearance at High Table, but
women were strange. She said a decent dinner was made to be shared: made
her feel more alone. If this old blow-hard didn't finish up that savoury
they would never get to that flicker in time. Said to be good, too ...
The Blue Light.

Damn and blast. And this was its last night. ) Perhaps, David was
deciding, I am just a two-room-and- kitchen chap.

Yet, that was not quite accurate, he reminded himself, as the scout
removed his untouched jelly: he had expensive tastes he would like to be
able to afford. Perhaps it was just Penny. Even one room and Penny would
be the answer to everything. He felt that his happiness was so
transparent at this moment that he looked sharply at the two men beside
him.

"Any objection, David?" Halsey asked, noticing the look.

"None at all." He looked at the other men with a sudden feeling of pity,
for not being so madly happy as he was at this moment. With a feeling,
too, of relief that they couldn't guess his emotions. And then he
wondered how many of these un revealing faces hid feelings that would
have startled the whole room. They talked about everything except what
they really felt.

"Of course," he said to McLllwain.

"Let's have the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, by all means." He looked
round the long monks' table once more, listening to the interweaving
voices, the pattern of laugh, the flow of words adding to a theme or
branching from it to give it a new statement or a twist of variation.

"Rather appropriate actually," David said.

McLllwain and Halsey showed a mild surprise, but they did not ask for an
explanation. That was one of the best things about Oxford: no one ever
need bother to explain.

Chapter Twenty-three.

DAVID AND HIS FATHER.

On Sunday David travelled to London. It was the beginning of March.

The whole countryside had been washed by February rains, brushed by
brisk winds as if nature had determined to have a thorough
spring-cleaning. He ignored the newspaper beside him: it would be filled
with further attempts to interpret and cover up the bad news which had
trickled out of Germany all last week. News became twice as depressing
when every one was making such a determined effort to hope for the best.
That underlined the danger: one did not have to explain away good news.
Hell, David thought, I refuse to be depressed to-day.

To-day's my holiday from work and worry and what should be done and what
shouldn't be done and what does this mean and what doesn't it mean?
To-day's the day I enjoy myself. In three hours' time I'll be seeing
Penny.

He slipped the small volume of Religio Medici back into his pocket.

He had thought the rich flow of Brown's elaborate eloquence would be an
antidote to the lists of facts and figures, the coldly presented ideas,
which he had been concentrating on all last week. A diet of
unimaginative prose always depressed him. He had brought the book with
him as a matter of habit.

Probably he had never meant to read it, anyway. How strange we are, he
thought: we buy newspapers, out of habit, which we don't even open, and
we cart along a book with us and then ignore it; as if it took a little
time for us to persuade ourselves to be completely lazy.

It was pleasant to see the green fields go wheeling past, to watch the
white clouds scattering over the cold blue sky in the March wind, to see
some occasional patch of wild daffodils at the edge of a sheltered wood,
to catch the colour of primroses under the hawthorn hedges with their
sprinkling of pale green. There were small lambs, too, frisking
unsteadily, to bring a smile to one's face. The telephone wires, strung
above the railway banks, moved as the train moved, dipped, straightened,
rose, dipped, to mark each mile nearer to London.

He went over the calculations he had made last night. Finals were in
June, and the thought of them was not unpleasant: a strange realization.
Last year one had thought of Finals and felt a mixture of worry and
dislike for June of 1933. Now he wished that June came in April. For
after the Finals came the job with Fairbairn. If he got a cracking
First, of course. Three hundred a year minimum--say, three hundred and
fifty a year with pot-boiling articles.

Four hundred a year with luck and some work. Four hundred, then.

Thirty-three pounds, roughly, each month. He could live on almost a
third of that. He could save about twenty pounds a month. He'd have to.
June, July, August. Sixty pounds. Could you furnish two rooms with that?
He damned well would. He did not want a rented flat, furnished. A place
of our own, he thought. No more lodgings, or college rooms, or a Cory's
Walk where his sister Margaret appropriated his room for her awful
female friends.

A place of their own  ...  that had the right sound. Sixty pounds was
not exactly a fortune, but at least they could make a beginning with the
essentials. Four walls to enclose your own corner of happiness.

Four walls with a bed inside them, a table, for meals and for work,
something to cook with, something to eat with, a bookcase for their
books, a place to keep their clothes, a couple of chairs, a place of
their own where a door shut meant a door shut. No more regulations
cutting short the time that Penny and he could spend together. No more
damned interference from anyone.

He laughed suddenly. Marriage, as he was picturing it, sounded like
freedom.

Perhaps that was the way you should think of it: if it weren't freedom
to be with each other, if being with each other wasn't the most
important thing in your lives, then you shouldn't even think of
marriage. For a moment he imagined what witticism Marain or some of the
other men he knew would think up if they heard him talk like this. He
smiled. He wasn't thinking of amusing remarks, either. He was thinking
that he had found a very simple truth, and that many a very clever man
had never found it; for you couldn't track down truth with words, or
analyse it, or explain it. It was there, you felt it, and you accepted
it. It was as simple as that.

At Paddington he jumped off the train before it came to a halt at the
long platform. A porter shook his head resignedly.

"That's wot we're 'ere for," he said to his mate, 'to pick up the
blooming pieces."

But David was already half-way down the platform, heading towards the
nearest telephone booth.

"Darling," he said.

Penny laughed as she always did. She sounded surprised and yet not so
surprised, happy, excited, gay. As soon as he heard her voice he
relaxed.

He never could get rid of that fear that some day he would 'phone and
then he would stand and listen to the maid at Baker House, her voice
growing fainter as she called, "Telephone for Miss. Lorrimer. Telephone
..." And then, after a long pause, the voice at the end of the 'phone
would say, "Hello," but it wouldn't be Penny's.

And instead of saying "Darling' he would listen to the explanation that
Miss. Lorrimer was out and had left no message. That was the fear that
always struck him as he waited.

He couldn't know that she had been lounging beside the telephone in
Baker House for the last ten minutes, pretending to be most interested
in the notice-board, wondering if the train was going to be late to-day,
hoping it would be early. (It had been exactly on time, as it always
was.) " I'll meet you in another hour and a half," David said." I'm on
my way now to see Father. Lunch at the usual place?"

"At the Brasserie? But that means you will have to come all the way into
town again ...  David, why don't I meet you at Hammersmith? At the main
entrance to the Piccadilly line? That would save a lot of time, wouldn't
it? And you won't have to rush away from your father.

Really, David, I shall't get lost. I'll wear a red carnation so you will
know me." And my new spring suit: how will he like it?

There was a short pause as David considered this only sensible
suggestion.

Then he said, "I love you, darling." And he meant it.

"David!"

"It's all right, darling. The girl at the Exchange wouldn't dream of
listening in. Would you. Exchange?"

A man's deep voice said, "I'm being completely ladylike."

There was a moment's silence, and then Penny's laughter.

"In that case," David went on, "I repeat I love you, and send a hundred
kisses, planted generously. I'll add another hundred when I see you.
What about Hampton Court for that?

That's a good place for talking, too. I've been deciding a lot of
things. I hope you'll like them. Keep thinking of September."

"September?"

"Yes, a wonderful month. Best month in the year. Goodbye, darling. See
you in one hour and twenty-eight minutes. At Hammersmith, Piccadilly
side. Take care of yourself. Good-bye, darling."

He came out of the bright red booth, and stood for a moment watching the
crowd, a mass of hurrying people in Sunday clothes struggling towards
the trains and a day in the country. He felt the movement and stir
around him, but he saw and heard nothing. It was ridiculous, he thought,
that anyone could be as happy as this at this moment. But he was.

David's father was alone in the house. He was sitting in his wheel-chair
at the window, but he had been reading the Observer's editorial so
attentively that he had not seen David coming along Cory's Walk.

David's quick glance noticed the un tidied room, the sandwiches wrapped
in a napkin on a plate, and the Thermos of tea placed beside them on the
small table. He greeted his father affectionately.

"Where's Meg?" he asked.

"At Communion. Then she is lunching with Miss. Rawson, and they are
going to some choral society's concert. The Messiah, I believe. She will
be home by five o'clock." "I see," David said quietly, but he looked
worriedly at his father.

"Well, how have you been?" He had to admit that his father seemed
stronger to-day than he had appeared for several months now. There was
an alert, almost vigorous look on his face.

"Well enough." Mr. Bosworth held up the newspaper, "There's been enough
happening since last Monday to excite a man. What do you think of it all
now, David?"

David glanced at the sedate headlines to the restrainec columns, tucked
away into the middle of the paper as if to lessen their importance.

"Disturbing," he said lamely.

"Don') get too excited.

Father," he added gently.

"If we were Germans we could do something about it. But as it is----" He
placed a hand on his father's shoulder. He was minimizing his own
feelings to calm his father.

His father looked at him, and then smiled sadly.

"I know," he said, 'you have your own worries, and plenty of them. You
don't like the news, either, but you are glad to forget it. Anc it is,
fundamentally, the Germans' problem. But they won't face it, for in
their hearts they believe that Germany is nevel at fault. So they will
look round tor others on whom to blame this Reichstag fire, and persuade
themselves that what ever they do--or allow to be done, and that's the
next stagf to actual doing--is right. And the trouble will grow." Hi;
voice suddenly sharpened.

"Don't people ever read his ton properly? Or do they think that if they
know a list of date; and what king ruled when, then that is enough? All
this has happened before, when Napoleon started his career. Step b^j
step--it is all there for us to read in the history books." Thei his
vice softened again.

"I can't blame you or any of you; friends. Most people did not find this
news even disturbing Probably thought it was a little bit of added
excitement in thi newspapers, instead of the daily diet of divorce cases
and dul political speeches. I can't blame you when even the chap who are
paid to know write generalizations like this." H pointed angrily at the
pages of print, at the other newspaper piled at his elbow.

"And all these comments from the world' capitals ...  They aren't real
comments at all. Nothing but : lot of soft soap." "Yes," David said
unhappily.

"But look. Father--some o my friends are worried. But what can we do?

What magazine or newspaper with any circulation is going to print what
we would like to write? What Member of Parliament or diplomat is going
to listen to what an undergraduate has to say? And we've got to think of
our own personal lives--who else will read the books for us, pass our
examinations, get us started in jobs? We have got to concentrate on what
we have to do, for until that is done we aren't even treated as if we
were adult. Most of us can't vote, and we'd be expelled from the
University if we got married. Why, we would be censured by most people
if we even got publicly engaged. Funny thing, that. Remember my American
friend Burns? He tells me that a student in America can get engaged if
he damned well wants to. And a lot of students are married too. Are we
any less adult than American men? Except, of course, when it comes to a
war. Then, by God, we are all considered adult enough to go out and
kill."

"Well, David," Mr. Bosworth said slowly, for it was difficult for him to
say the things he ought to say when he believed so little in them, 'the
universities in this country think that a man's work is disturbed by
marriage. He doesn't get such good results if he has a wife to interfere
with his work."

"Which is the reason," David said, with heavy sarcasm, 'that America is
such a poor, undeveloped, backward country."

His father had to smile. Life wasn't a debating society, he was
reflecting: David was right when he implied that, however excellent
arguments might seem when they were logically stated, they didn't always
produce the only good results when worked out in practice. For a nation
that prides itself on its tolerance, we English really like to believe
that only our way is the correct way, he thought sadly.

"Besides," David went on, defending the young men who were as powerless
as they were made to feel, 'none of us wants to start marching, and how
else could you deal with Germany? And, what's more, how would it look in
the history books if we interfered at this moment in German ai fairs
That would just back up all that Hitler has been screaming: we are
jealous of Germany and want to kick her in the teeth whenever possible."

"I didn't mention marching, as far as I recall," his father said
sharply.

"All I want is that people understand what is going on. We should take
the warning signal and keep watch. That's all."

T agree," David said, and thought of some way to turn the conversation.
His father had never forgiven Germany for her treachery in 1914, and
because he was one of a very small minority who still remember--a
minority that was argued down and snubbed and attacked by all the broad
minded people who knew better--he had become hypersensitive about the
whole thing.

And what, David suddenly thought, if they are all wrong and Father is
right?

It was an unpleasant thought, chilling him for the long moment he had
unveiled it in his mind. Then he covered it over by walking to the table
and lifting the edge of the folded napkin. Sandwiches, as he had
thought.

"Look, Father, I'll go and forage in the pantry.

There must be something to cook there, surely. What do you think about
'phoning----"

"What we need is a batch of new diplomats, the best brains we have.

And with guts and red blood," his father was saying. He looked at David
pointedly.

"Well, I've got red blood," David said.

"But I don't know about these other qualifications." God, he thought in
desperation, here we start (his all over again.

"I was saying, what about 'phoning Penny? We'll have lunch here with
you.

There must be something in the larder.

Penny says she can cook. Let's try her out, shall we?"

"Perhaps I should be safer with sandwiches," his father said. "And, in
any case, I rather like being here alone when I have so much to read."
No piano to-day, thank Heaven.

"Where are you and Penny going this afternoon?"

"Hampton Court." That, David had thought, would be a change from
Regent's Park and the Zoo. The Tower wasn't too bad, either, if you
avoided the popular exhibits. But the museums and art galleries were
just as bad as Westminster Abbey; no conversation possible, for the
smallest remark had to be delivered in an awed whisper, and if you
hadn't whispered with enough awe there was always a sentinel on duty
with a reminding eye.

"I do believe you've seen more of your London this winter than in all
the other years of your life put together," his father remarked.

"You weren't ever much of a sightseer." He looked at David with open
amusement. David had flushed, and then he laughed too.

"You had better leave soon," his father suggested.

"I'll give Penny a ring, and tell her to come over. There are plenty of
days for Hampton Court." After the Finals are over, David added to
himself: this would have to be his last visit to town this term. Then
came Easter, and Penny would be in Scotland. Then his last term, and a
damned lot of work too. No time to travel to London, unless his work
went miraculously well.

His father's face saddened.

"Now what was that?" David asked quickly.

"Nothing," his father answered. How pleasant to be able to say you had
plenty of days to go to Hampton Court or any other place. Plenty of days
.

He half sighed. David started towards the door.

"No, David," his father said, sharply enough to halt him. "Not to-day.
This is one of my grouchy days. I like your Penny, and so I want her to
like me.

And I also want to read my newspapers, and compose a few speeches that
I'd like to be able to make. Arguing with myself is most enjoyable,
because I always end up, somehow or other, by agreeing with myself." He
smiled broadly.

"Come away from that door, David. If you don't I'll talk to you about
Germany."

David knew he meant that too, so he came back to his chair. He said,
"Well, let's have some family news. How is Margaret? She hasn't written
very much recently."

"Margaret is concentrating on music at the moment," Mr. Bosworth said.

He glanced ruefully at the ceiling towards the room upstairs.

"Less scales, though, I must admit. And some new pieces too. She has
been attending these afternoon classes quite regularly. And she has been
seeing a good deal of Miss. Rawson."

David looked at his father quickly. What had made him say that?

"More than usual?" David asked sharply.

His father considered for a moment.

"Miss. Rawson is coming to live here once the Easter vacation is over.

Margaret says you won't need your room after that. She says you are
obviously going to marry Penelope Lorrimer as soon as you can."

David was silent.

"Father," he said at last, 'if you were me and mother had been Penny,
wouldn't you?"

His father did not answer for some moments. He seemed almost as if he
had forgotten the question. Then he glanced at his son. I am sorry for
all these young men, he thought, for these young men and women.

All planning the beginning of careers, the beginning of their real life.

None of them know how little time they may have. None of them have yet
discovered that they may plan and work; and all that they have planned,
worked for, may be swept away by men they have never seen who appear to
have nothing to do with their lives.

He roused himself to say, "Frankly I don't think you should wait any
longer than is necessary. And it is for you and Penny to decide that.

You know, when you are happily married, the years become shorter and
shorter.

Too short."

The newspapers slid off his lap, and David stooped to pick them up.

He folded them neatly, placing the pages in the correct order, and laid
them carefully on the small reading- table beside his father's chair. He
said nothing.

"Too short," his father repeated.

"So have all the happpiness you can before it is taken away from you.
That was the chief lesson I learned in my life." His voice was low, as
if he were tiring. He glanced at the clock.

"Don't be late, David. Give Penelope my love."

"There is still plenty of time," David said, but he looked anxiously at
the clock. He pretended to be interested in the new books from the
library which were on the reading-table. "Has Margaret a lot of other
women _friends?"

"No. Or, at least, I don't see any of them," his father said. And then
his voice sharpened, "And you haven't plenty of time."

"What about men?"

"At the moment she thinks us a bad lot."

"That sounds like an overdose of Rawson," David said worriedly.

"Better leave, David. Glad you came, but I'll see Penny another day,"
his father urged. He picked up the Sunday Times.

"Now, let's see what we have here," he said, in a tone of voice which
announced he knew quite well what to expect.

David let himself be reassured, partly by the renewed vigour in his
father's voipe, partly by the determined look on his face. He could not
have been exhausted, after all. And he apparently was not very worried
about Margaret.

But I am, David thought. Once his Finals were over he would deal with
this Old Man of the Sea Rawson. Margaret would never have any chance for
real happiness if she had Florence Rawson hanging round her neck, making
her distrust and dislike every one except Florence Rawson. As he picked
up his hat from the hall stand, and twisted the knot of his foulard tie
to sit squarely against his blue shirt collar, he stared at himself
angrily in the mirror. And then he left the house quickly.

He turned to wave to his father, and then, hat in hand, strode down the
Walk.

After all, his father had said very definitely that he wanted no
visitors this afternoon. And there was really no time totelephone Penny
now. He should have done that when the idea had first struck him. Hell,
he said to himself.

The houses seemed smaller in the bright spring light. Their bricks were
more soot-stained. There was the smell of Sun- day dinners cooking on
the small gas-ovens. One pair of lace curtains quivered gently as their
owner watched him discreetly. Opposite the row of neat little boxes the
skeleton branches of the lime-tree looked as if they had little strength
to bloom this year.

David halted at the corner, and turned to wave once more towards his
father's window.

"All right, all right," he said under his breath.

"You are damned relieved that Father didn't want you around, that you
could have Penny to yourself to-day." He gave one last glance at the
window. He would be late for Penny now. He set off at a steady run
towards the Tube station. That was one way, too, of working off his
anger.

He arrived, rather short of breath but in a better temper, in time to
catch one of the faster trains. That piece of luck helped too. He was
unworried and in good humour when he boarded the train. And he
remembered his father's decided voice and look when he had said, "Glad
you came but  ..."

That reassured David nicely, probably because he wanted to be reassured.

Chapter Twenty-four.

WESTERN WIND ... The sharp March wind had driven most of the visitors to
Hampton Court inside the palace. There they could wander comfortably
through the halls and rooms which lay open, with all their ancient
display, to the public.

But David, although he wore no coat, and Penny, in her new spring suit,
did not seem to notice the wind. All they noticed, indeed, was the fact
that Hampton Court was most pleasantly uncrowded. In this quiet corner
of the gardens they could even feel alone. David slipped his arm around
her waist as they paced slowly up and down between the hedges of yew,
cleanly trimmed into patterns of neatness. At least, Penny had decided,
they must be yew: she could hardly imagine Cardinal Wolsey allowing
anything except the very best yew to be planted in his gardens. But now
she had forgotten about Wolsey's pride in possession and Henry VIII's
little piece of sharp practice, which you could forgive because it had
been directed against the Cardinal--injustice always seemed comic when
practised against the mighty--and she was only thinking about David's
plans. By the telling they were becoming their plans. There was warmth
from his body and warmth from the hope in his words.

"Oh, David," Penny said suddenly, and caught his hand and pressed it to
her side, so that his arm tightened round her waist.

"So soon?" No more dreary months of loneliness, no more waiting and
worrying, no more of this awful feeling of time slipping away, of living
only for the future. She laughed with equal suddenness. The wind had
whipped the colour into the smooth skin of her cheeks; her eyes were all
the more blue for the blue sky above; her hair was as shining as the
spring sun.

It could not be too soon," he said. He was smiling, but his voice was
strained as if all the emotion inside him, so suddenly aroused by her
happy laugh, had made simple words almost too difficult to put together
in a sentence. He halted, and they came to a stop. They were no longer
smiling. They faced each other, gripping hands, feeling each other's
emotion so intensely that happiness and pain were no longer
distinguishable. The long moments passed, their hands dropped, and they
began walking once more.

David's stride was uneven, and Penny's balance seemed unsteady (but she,
at least, had high heels on which to blame that), for she lurched
against his arm and then said, "Sorry!" in so stilted a way, as if he
were a stranger, that he laughed.

T suppose most people would say we are insane," he said. But if this is
insanity, then I never want to be sane. That woman certainly would." He
looked with growing annoyance towards the stranger who had chosen to
invade this small corner of the gardens and who was watching them in a
frightened kind of way. And there was another, just behind her, a man
who was pacing slowly along the box border of a formal flower-bed.
Didn't he know that there were much better hyacinths to be seen
elsewhere? Never left alone, David thought bitterly. If it isn't
relatives or friends it is a landlady or a strange female with a cold
red nose pointed in our direction. Why couldn't she stare at the
flower-beds as the man beside her was doing?

The strange female, who wouldn't have recognized herself by that
description, took a hesitating step and then halted. For the last two
minutes she had been wondering if she might ask that nice young couple
what time it was. So silly of her to have forgotten to pin on her watch;
it had been lying on the dressing-table, and she had said, "Now don't
forget that. You know Emily does not like being late for tea." And she
had forgotten it after all. And really you couldn't trust sundials now,
what with all this Winter and Summer Time foolishness, when did you take
an hour off or put an hour on, so frightfully bewildering to the poor
things? And she had seemed to see only men in the last five minutes.
There was one just behind her now.

He couldn't be following her, could he? And she couldn't ask a strange
man, anyway, what time it was. And tea was at four. And that did mean
four o'clock. Emily disapproved of people who arrived early too. And it
was a pity, indeed it was, to leave this charming garden even if it was
rather cold to-day, so disappointing for spring, before she really must.
Not that the people Emily invited totea were not interesting too, but
after all they couldn't quite compare with Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour
and Mary-- was dreadful how school-children to-day were taught th: nasty
word before her name--and Elizabeth, and that awfi Charles II.

Emily always said that this had been a court ( shocking iniquity, and
what all these mazes and hidd< gardens were built for was best
forgotten, Emily . o; dear, she really must ask these young people the
time.

She halted in dismay as she realized that they were in tl middle of a
conversation, and a very private one, too.

"N1 insane," the young lady was saying; 'sane at last. I know no^ for
the first time, why I was born and why I should live : all. It cannot be
insanity to find that out. It is the only thir that makes life sane."

Penny stopped and looked at the shrinking owner of tl timid voice which
had spoken and yet had scarcely be heard. The time, David said, was
exactly ten minutes pa four. It was their turn to be startled as Emily's
friend sai

"Oh, dear!" in a horrified voice, and rushed out of the gardf with her
scarf and umbrella aflutter.

"I probably frightened her," Penny said, smiling now, b with the deep
colour of embarrassment still clinging to h cheeks.

David said nothing. He was wondering why on earth elder females who
wanted to know the time just had to come ov at that moment. Why on earth
hadn't she asked the man wt had been so near her? Why had she chosen to
interrupt then And now Penny was pretending to laugh at herself and h
serious phrases, and when she spoken again it would be abo some ordinary
thing, but not about the moment they h; both felt so intensely. He knew
that, and yet hoped he w wrong, as he watched the varying emotions in
her face. Go he thought suddenly, there isn't an expression on her fa
that I cannot read now, there isn't one movement of h body that I don't
know off by heart, and yet I cannot be su of her. Knowing, yet not
knowing. Perhaps that was wh kept people plunging more deeply into love,
knowing and y not knowing. Love was wild contrast: you knew, yet you we
unsure; you trusted, yet you were jealous; you were amazi that you had
found so much, and yet you wanted more; yc were content with one woman,
yet wanted her to be hundred women; you were tied to her more closely
with eve hour you spent with her, tied hand and foot, and yet y< were
free in a strange new way, startled with such freedom; you were
relaxed--feeling, here I am happy, here I am at home--and yet you knew
tension and constant effort. Constant effort in a love that had been
effortless and natural-- because you were unsure, jealous, demanding,
desirous, painfully conscious of your own lack of worth--perhaps that
was love. Perhaps love lived on constant effort, however effortless and
natural it seemed.

Penny was speaking, and he had been right. She was saying, "I had a
letter from Mother yesterday. She is coming to London, and she will
probably be here next week-end. So no Oxford next Sunday, David!" "Are
the family coming too?" David asked. I'll have to meet Penny's father
soon, he was thinking. But it would have been better to wait until he
had gone down from Oxford with a job all nicely landed.

Three hundred a year, sir, with extras on the side to bring it to four
hundred. And prospects. Yes, we are young, sir, but--after all, David
admitted to himself at this moment, there weren't so very many young men
in Britain who earned four hundred a year to start with.

Penny had been saying that her mother was coming alone, which was
strange, and so very suddenly, which was even stranger.

"Probably she has become exhausted or exasperated by those Bonnier
Bairns and Restored Ruins and wants to get away from them all. If she is
in London during next weekend, why not bring her up to Oxford? I'll be
the very perfect, gentle guide."

Penny's frown disappeared.

"That's a wonderful idea. We could give her a marvelous day, and she
could get to know you properly, and----" she broke off, her eyes
excited, her whole face alive with her delight in such a chance to show
David as host.

"Yes," David said, reading her thoughts.

"We could use an ally in your family camp. How much have you written to
them? About us, I mean?"

"Only sideways, darling. You see, it is sort of difficult in my family
to mention the word " love." Every one would get embarrassed.

But my letters weren't very successful. I thought that if I mentioned
your name here and there, sort of slipped it in, as it were, that would
be their cue. They would start asking questions about you. But they
didn't." Penny wrinkled her brow thoughtfully.

"I tried at Christmas too, to know how matters stood. But I found that
awfully Somehow, every time I got the conversation arounc it would be
snatched out of my mouth."

"Never mind," he said consolingly, 'your mother was soon as she sees us
together. What's that thing we supposed to have? Intuition?"

"Grandfather MacLntyre has it too," Penny said.

"I i sure he has guessed about us from my letters. He do much, either,
of course. He just slips in a little senti " Give my regards to David
when you see him." B enough."

David laughed this time. So that was enough, was Penny know that her
grandfather knew?

"Does that approves or not?" he asked.

"Of course he does. He wouldn't mention you of Then she stared at him as
her light-hearted remark less pleasant idea. David was following her
train of thought.

"Perh; mother doesn't approve," he said gently, watching tl on Penny's
face.

"That would make things rather wouldn't it?" Penny didn't answer.

"Impossible?" David asked.

"No," she said quickly, and tightened her hand in 1 she seemed surprised
at her own intensity.

"No," she more quietly. She looked up at his expressionless faci ing her
so intently.

"No, David," she said, with a wai and the worry had left her eyes.

"You see, I am in li David said, "I don't hear that often enough." He
his voice light, and his reward was a laugh from Pe hell, he thought, in
sudden anger with himself. the are as bad as the Scots, who won't even
mention "love," because it is embarrassing; they've always go the word
"love" into a half-joke, for if they can lau it they won't be in so much
danger of being lai What's wrong with us, anyway? Who is going to anyone
except the spiteful, and who cares about thi His voice became serious.

"Anyone looking at yoi could tell why I love you. But why you love me is
s hard to understand. So keep telling me.

Penny, that love me. I need a lot of convincing about that. Anc you love
me, anyway? Why, Penny?" He put his arms round her and kissed her
violently.

"And I bet that old boy over there, studying the box hedge, has been
wondering how long it would take me to do that." Hell, retreating into
the famous remark again. He glanced over his shoulder.

"Hello! He's gone. Good Lord, imagine that! We're alone!" He kissed her
again. He felt her body relax against his, and then he heard the rush
and scramble of many pairs of flat-heeled sensible shoes as a cohort of
schoolgirls swept into the garden.

"Hell's bells," David said under his breath. He took Penny's arm, and
they left the little garden, now a mass of green-and- white hat-bands,
all volunteering different information in their high-pitched voices to a
thoroughly bewildered schoolmistress. "All we want," he said savagely,
'is to be left alone. It doesn't seem much to ask, but there must be a
conspiracy against it. Lord, perhaps that is why people have to marry .
to be allowed to be left alone."

Outside the Maze, a park-keeper looked at them gloomily from under his
peaked cap, and reminded them in the voice of doom that It would soon be
closed.

Every one, he said pointedly, was leaving.

"Oh, that's all right," David said encouragingly.

"If we get lost we'll wait until you come to fetch us." The keeper did
not seem at all cheered by such cooperation.

"Don't worry about him," David told Penny, as he took her arm and led
her into a narrow lane of grass bordered by tall clipped hedges.

"All he wants is to get home to his tea or to have a pint of bitter at
the Barge Aground. And he couldn't leave here, in any case, until it is
time to knock off duty. What's more, this is the best part of the day in
here; no pack of schoolgirls baying at our heels. And it is warmer too.
Even the wind finds it difficult to reach the centre of the Maze."

"Yes, it is warmer," Penny agreed, with some surprise. Somehow she
hadn't noticed how cold it had been in the more open gardens until she
had felt the contrast in here. When she was with David she never seemed
to notice anything very much, except what he said or how he looked.

"Temperature rising steadily." He halted as they came to a block of
hedge.

"Well, this couldn't have been the right path after all. Now, either we
can start all over again or we can stay here. If we were very astute and
walked a couple of miles we probably would reach the centre of the Maze.
Or we could quite possibly walk a couple of miles and find ourselves
back here.

What do you think?"

"I think we ought to save ourselves the trouble," Penny said.

"After all, I suppose one path looks exactly like another, so that I've
really seen all the Maze in the first few minutes."

"Or we could be very coy, and you could run away and we'd both get
lost--you running away, and I giving chase. That used to be one of the
chief sports here in earlier days. Maids-in-waiting or the Windsor
Beauties all around, gay girlish laughter, manly oaths."

"A complicated way of arranging your pleasures. And it would be so very
unkind to the old keeper: we'd get lost separately instead of together,
and then he would have twice the work to do. He'd be late for that pint
of bitter. We couldn't do that, could we?"

"No, we couldn't do that to him," David agreed, and they both began to
laugh.

"We'll get out easily enough, so that we can stay as long as possible in
here. We took the first turn to the left, then to the right, and again,
to the left. Reverse that, and we'll come out in time to let the old boy
have his tea at a nice warm fire. I'm all against cruelty to
park-keepers." And then David, watching her face, put aside all pretence
of joking. His voice became serious.

"Penny, darling." He took her in his arms, and kissed her as he had
wanted to kiss her since the first minute they had met that day.

The long kiss was over, and he drew back just for a moment to see her
face again. She met his eyes, her arms tightened round his shoulders.

She said, in a low voice, intense in its honesty, "Oh, David, I am so
happy."

"I love you," he answered. He kissed her again. At this moment, holding
her, knowing that she loved him, he was happy too: the only moment, he
thought, that one is completely, really, truly, safely happy. Could
happiness only be measured in moments? That was the difference of being
a man and being a woman in love. A woman in love would say, "I am
happy." Being in love was enough. But when could a man say it and not
measure it in moments? When he had possessed her and was sure of her?
When she was safely married to him? Or was he ever sure?

*I love you," he repeated. He pretended to smile, but Penny, looking up
at him quickly as she heard the strained note in his voice, saw the
lines above his mouth deepen, not with laughter, but with some emotion
nearer pain. For a moment his unhappiness in love reached out to draw
her into his unsatisfied longing. I don't want to hurt him, ever, ever,
she thought. I only want to make him happy as I am happy, yet all I have
done is to torture. I am cheating somehow: I am being dishonest somehow,
and yet  ...

"I do love you, David," she said.

"I do." "I know," he said gently. He smiled now, and ruffled her
hair--any piece of foolishness to chase the worry out of her eyes. He
cursed himself for having let the disguise slip from his face, so she
had seen too deeply into his real feelings. He thought, I'm damned if
I'll blackmail her with pity. / cannot go on like this; I cannot bear
seeing you and yet not seeing you, loving you and yet not having proof
of your love. That was the easy way to win a girl: blackmail with pity,
playing on her desire to have you happy as you want to be happy. And I'm
damned if I'll force her into anything before she makes up her own mind.
That was another easy way to win, and then, ultimately, to lose her.
When she comes to me, he thought, she will come because she wants me. As
I want her. And then I'll have her for ever, not just for a year or two
years. I'll be sure.

"For ever," he said aloud.

She astounded him by throwing her arms round him and kissing him with
passion as intense as his own.

"Penny," he said unsteadily.

"Penny."

And then the bell sounded the closing of the maze, breaking the moment
with its harsh voice.

"A sense of humour," David said, as they retraced their steps, 'is
obviously a necessity in love. Otherwise you'd become a solid chunk of
frustration."

Penny nodded, busy with the technique of combing her hair, powdering her
nose, and looking into the small mirror of her handbag. She was thinking
that the short distance to the entrance was considerably longer than
they had imagined.

"Or was it to the left, and then the right, and then the left? Or to the
right, and then the left, and then the left?" David asked. Yes,
definitely, one needed a constant sense of humour.

"We ought to have brought a logarithm table with us," Penny said.

"We could have worked it out by sin and co,?. If one can find
non-existent lightships by sin and cos one surely could find a gate
which does exist."

In the end the keeper had to come and fetch them. He was quite
philosophic about it, as if he had expected any young man with good
sense and a pretty girl to lose his way. And that little practical
extra, slipped into his hand as the young man thanked him, would buy him
an extra pint or two this evening: that was always a help to being
philosophical.

They walked slowly back from Marinelli's to the green door in Gower
Street.

"It won't be so long now," David was saying.

"Not so long before we do not need to say good-bye any more." And stop
worrying whether you will see her again, he thought, next week, or the
week after, or ever.

"Do you really think I should bring Mother to Oxford next Sunday? She
could come some other time, when you are less busy."

"I think it would be a good idea. And, quite apart from that, I want to
see you. I can work like a stoat all week if I think I can see you on
Sunday.

I'll invite Chaundler to lunch that day too. He will assure your mother
that I am perfectly respectable, really."

Penny smiled and pressed his arm. She knew, as he had guessed, her
mother's weakness for respectability. Some day, she thought, she was
going to ask her mother what it was about people that she called 'nice."
As a standard it did seem to vary. Take the Fanes, for instance. Mrs.
Lorrimer called them a nice family. They had nice accents, nice clothes,
a nice house, and a nice income. Yet, as a family, they were a mockery,
and as individuals they were selfish and cheap. They had a very pretty
facade of niceness, like a mean building camouflaged from the front to
look broader and bigger than it was.

Mr. Fane was the only one who had made any claim to reality for himself:
if any of the others were to die in their sleep there would be
absolutely no loss to the world.

T'm sorry for Mr. Fane," Penny said suddenly.

"Because he is the only one of the family whom you don't know?

Perhaps if you met him you'd feel less sorry."

"Well, if I were a man, and did the providing and got very little in
return for my trouble--well  ..."

"Well, what?" David was watching her with amusement.

"I don't know." She shook her head in bewilderment.

"You see, I never thought of that before. Frankly, David, I don't
believe many women have thought about it. Either they learn it
instinctively, and their husbands are happy, or they don't learn."

"I think you chose a pretty good example to generalize over," David
said.

"But how on earth did the conversation take this turn? Have we just
passed the Fanes' house?"

Penny looked in surprise at the number over the fanlight of the nearest
house.

"Why, yes, we must have passed it. And I could swear that I never
noticed it. Didn't even know we were almost at the end of the street.
How short it seems when I'm walking with you, David.

Last night Marston and I went to see the new Rene Clair film; and,
coming back, we walked up this street and we both agreed it was far too
long. No street should be this length and look so much the same all the
way. Yet, tonight."

"It's too short. Just as the hours are too short when we are together."
He glanced at his watch.

"We've been eight solid hours together to-day. They seem less than two.

Look, when we get married I'll have the days arranged into thirty-six
hours, so that we'll have enough time to do all the things we want to do
together.

That would be pleasant."

Wonderful."

"Wonderful, too."

They looked at each ottier. Then, holding arms more tightly, with hands
clasped and fingers interlocked, they walked towards the green door.
David watched her walk up the steps which bridged the basement area,
waved back to her, waited until the door had closed. He crossed to the
lamp-post, looked down the length of the long street, long and dreary.
It was a lonely street now. He paused to light a cigarette and waited.
His eyes were on the top floor of the house. That was her window. He had
waited like this every time after saying good-bye. But to-night. when
the light had been switched on, and she had come over to the window to
draw the curtains, she stood there looking down into the street. He knew
by the stillness of her body that she had seen him. And then she waved,
and he waved back, and it was she who now stood watching him as he
turned to enter the narrow, dark side- street which would take him to
Tottenham Court Road.

The dark street was silent and desolate. The wind was colder. It came
from the east, a hard sharp wind that needed the Atlantic to soften its
bite.

Christ, he thought, always walking away from her, always leaving her.

Would there ever be an end to this? Ever an end to the loneliness that
was more searching than any east wind? He threw his half-finished
cigarette into the gutter.

"Christ," he said, listening to his footsteps' empty echo in the silent
street. Then he thought of the lines he had found last night when he had
been searching through the Oxford Book of English Verse for a quotation
that had baffled him. He had opened the book casually, and there they
were. He began to repeat them as he passed the last stretch of unlighted
shops and dark dead houses.

western wind, when wilt thou blow That the small rain down can rain?

Christ, that my love were in my arms And I in my bed again!

He thought of the man who had written them. Poor beggar, whoever he had
been four hundred years ago.

And then the lights and noise of Tottenham Court Road brought him back
to the twentieth century and a train to be caught. He glanced at his
watch and began to hurry.

Chapter Twenty-five.

PUNITIVE EXPEDITION.

Mrs. Lorrimer sat in Penelope's bedroom, watched her daughter arranging
two teacups on an improvised tea-table, and felt still more unhappy.

In Edinburgh it had been simple to work up a mood of righteous
indignation: her daughter living in luxury in London; her daughter
taking a frivolous life for granted; her daughter, as return for such
pampering, behaving with a ridiculous lack of common sense, perhaps even
ruining her whole future. But now a good deal of Mrs. Lorrimer's
indignation was turned against the room.

It was not worth a third of the money spent on it.

Penelope, accustomed to the Crescent and its comfort must have been
miserable here.

And yet she did not look unhappy. Mrs. Lorrimer's annoyance increased.

We gave her every opportunity, and yet she is happy in a place like
this, Mrs. Lorrimer thought bitterly. No sense of values whatever, if
Mattie Fane's letter carried any truth. Yes, it was the letter that had
brought her to London. As she had said to Mr. Lorrimer, she simply had
to see Penelope to set her mind at ease. Mr. Lorrimer agreed, with his
usual keen legal perception, that smoke usually implied fire. Not that
he thought much of that Fane woman, a silly, light-headed
flibbertigibbet, but who was this Bosfield, anyway?

"Bosworth  ...  Father likes him," Mrs. Lorrimer had said. Mr. Lorrimer
had shrugged his shoulders. So Mrs. Lorrimer had set out for London,
feeling the whole thing somehow was her responsibility, and she had a
worrying journey, during which she mentally prepared several little
speeches and various approaches. But now, as she sat here and looked
round the little room, it was difficult to get started on any of them.

"I see you have been doing some work," she said, noting the untidy desk.
If painting could be called work, she thought. Still, that was a good
sign.

The rest of the room was neat enough, but the desk was an eyesore.
Really, Penelope ought to keep all these things in drawers and
cupboards.

Penny, who had spent a tiresome half-hour at lunchtime making the desk
neat, said,

"Of course." It was difficult to keep the note of surprise out of her
voice.

Had Mother really expected her to be doing no work at all?

"How is the food here?" Mrs. Lorrimer asked. Penny looked up, her
surprise increasing, as she finished arranging some biscuits on a
Woolworth plate.

Conversation had, indeed, been peculiar ever since the restrained
meeting at the station. Brief comments, unimportant little questions,
all made and asked in an atmosphere of cold gloom which had been both
worrying and irritating.

"Not particularly interesting," Penny answered, with determined
cheerfulness, 'but no one has yet died of hunger."

Mrs. Lorrimer, watching the smile on her daughter's face, had to admit,
in spite of her determination to be critical, that Penelope was really
becoming a most attractive young woman. Woman?

Yes, she was older: she was thinner, she wore lipstick, and she had
arranged her hair differently. All that made her look older. What
ridiculous fashions were adopted by girls to-day, as if they wouldn't be
old quite soon enough without adding ten years to their ages now.

"Why didn't you write and tell me about this?" Mrs. Lorrimer gestured
with a contemptuous arm as she looked round the room. Her eyes avoided
the primroses which Penelope had arranged in a green bowl and the
excellent reproductions with which Penelope had decorated the bare
walls.

"It would only have sounded like complaining," Penny said. "Besides, you
wanted me to stay here. It was one of the conditions attached to coming
to London."

Mrs. Lorrimer had forgotten that, somehow, when she had first entered
the room. Now her criticism of Penelope's lack of money sense seemed
levelled at herself. She said sharply, "I see you have been buying
clothes. You shouldn't wear black, Penelope. It isn't becoming: makes
you much too old."

Penny looked down with disappointment at her black crepe dress.

"I

saved some money," she said defensively. And then, "I thought we might
have dinner somewhere decent, and go to a theatre. After all, this visit
to London does call for some sort of celebration."

"We shall have dinner at my hotel. I have a lot to talk to you about,"
Mrs. Lorrimer said.

Penny looked worriedly at her mother.

"Is something wrong at home?" she asked.

"Is Father ill again?"

"Don't be silly, Penelope. You talk as if your father were an invalid.

There is nothing wrong with him that a simple diet won't cure. We are
all well and happy, a very happy family indeed. Except where you are
concerned.

You are the one we have been worrying about a good deal." There, it was
said. Mrs. Lorrimer took a deep breath.

This was not the approach she had intended, but the opening had suddenly
come, and she had taken it, and there it was--a beginning.

But Penelope seemed to be determined neither to understand nor to be
helpful.

"Why, Mother," she said, 'look at mel Don't I look well, even if I have
got a cold? And that's only because I thought spring had come last
Sunday and wore a suit to visit Hampton Court. Apart from that, I'm in
marvelous health. And I've never been so happy. Mother, I have the most
wonderful news for you!" Penny halted her enthusiasm for a moment.

Her mother was not sharing it. At the moment her mother looked almost on
the point of tears. Never been so happy  ...  perhaps that had been a
tactless remark. Penny hastened to explain it. The note of gladness came
back into her voice, and her eyes were shining. It is about David,
Mother, David Bosworth."

Mrs. Lorrimer almost dropped her teacup.

Penny was saying excitedly," He wants to marry me. He will soon be going
down from Oxford, and he has a job, a wonderful job, and we could get
married this summer."

The teacup fell. Mrs. Lorrimer did not even notice it, it seemed. It was
Penny who picked up the pieces.

"Why did you hide this from us? What have you to hide?" Mrs. Lorrimer
asked, in sudden anger.

"Why, nothing." Penny was taken aback. Her delight in her news faded.

Her voice became defensive again.

"And we didn't hide anything purposely. I tried totell you at Christmas
that we were in love. I tried totell you in my letters that I saw
David.

But you never seemed interested."

"Isn't it customary for a young man to make himself known to the girl's
family before he even mentions marriage?"

"David was going to write, and he was going to go up to Edinburgh to see
Father as soon as his Finals were over. Don't you see. Mother, he had to
wait until things were more definite, until he could say to you and
Father----"

" And I take it," Mrs. Lorrimer interrupted, with withering scorn, 'that
you now count yourself engaged without the permission of your parents,
without an engagement ring, without any announcement?"

"Well, you can't become formally engaged while you are still an
undergraduate. At least, it isn't much approved. And you can't marry
until you have finished your University career."

"I should think not," Mrs. Lorrimer said, in an outraged voice. She
paused for a moment to try to restrain her rising anger. She smoothed
the skirt of her brown tweed suit, pulled at her beige chamois gloves,
all with small, broken gestures. Her white face had flushed, her blue
eyes stared at her daughter accusingly.

"But," Penny went on firmly, taking advantage of her mother's inability
to speak, 'that doesn't prevent men at Oxford from falling in love or
making up their minds to marry the first moment that is possible."

There was no answer. Mrs. Lorrimer was searching for her crisp linen
handkerchief in her brown leather handbag. Her lips were pinched and
thin.

"Really, Mother," Penny said indignantly, 'this can't be so much of a
shock.

For one thing, you saw his letters on our hall table; you've noticed
mine to him. And I did mention him in my letters home, and I did ' "I
never imagined for one moment that things had gone so far. You are only
a child, Penelope, and you don't know how foolishly you are behaving. As
for this David Bosworth, we know nothing about him. We don't know his
family; we don't know one thing. He might be a Catholic, a Communist, or
anything."

"They don't often mix," Penny said, and smiled in spite of herself.

"Actually, if you feel any happier about it, he is Protestant and
Labour.

And as for his family, he has a sister who studies music and a father
who was invalided out of the War. There's no insanity, no drunkenness,
no divorces, no prison sentences; nothing, in fact, that one might be
ashamed of."

"There's no need to be facetious," Mrs. Lorrimer said.

Penny took a deep breath.

"Look, Mother, David and I had thought up a surprise for you."

Mrs. Lorrimer looked at her daughter almost wildly, as if to say that
one surprise a day of such proportions was more than enough.

"You are staying over the week-end, aren't you? David would like to have
us for lunch next Sunday at Oxford. Mr. Chaundler will be there.

Grandfather's friend. And once you really meet ' "Have you been going to
Oxford to visit this man?"

Penny's patience ended suddenly.

"You will see on Sunday that there are a lot of people travelling to
Oxford to spend the day. A lot of girls, too. What's wrong with that?"

"And he has been coming to London in order to see you?"

"Of course. When people fall in love they want to see each other, don't
they? Our bad luck is that we get so little time together, what with
Geography and David's work and my classes."

"It has got to be stopped." Mrs. Lorrimer's voice was staccato. Penny,
who knew that tone and what it meant, half rose from her seat on the
bed, and then sat down again. She knew what was coming, and yet she
couldn't believe it. She knew, and yet she wouldn't believe. It is now,
she thought; whatever and whoever I am to be, it is to be decided now.
Her anger left her: a strange feeling, as if she were standing apart
from this scene watching everything with critical coldness.

"You must give me your word," Mrs. Lorrimer was saying, 'that you will
see no more of this David Bosworth. You are both too young, the whole
thing is folly, and if he has any decency he will wait for four or five
years until you are old enough to know what you are doing."

"I know what I am doing. Age isn't a matter of years, Mother. Some women
at forty are sixteen mentally. My grandmother was married at eighteen.
You were married when you were twenty. Did that----"

" You are to see no more of him, Penelope."

"Why?"

"Because he is not the kind of man we want you to marry. You will
understand that for yourself in a few years. I am only saying this for
your own good, Penelope."

"And just what is my " good"? What good is there in anything if you are
not happy? I am the one, surely, to judge what I want or what I do not
want out of life. We've all different ideas about happiness, so how can
we judge for each other? Moira's idea of being happy would bore me to
tears, but I don't think she is wrong. I am just glad I am not Moira,
that's all."

"I wish you were half as thoughtful and sensible as Moira. It would have
spared me this worry."

"Mother," Penny said firmly, 'it is you who are causing yourself this
worry.

If you only trust me, then----"

"It is obvious that we can't trust you. If you won't give us your
promise to stop seeing him, then we shall send you away from London.

Not back to Edinburgh. We don't want the embarrassment of inventing
excuses why you had to come home so suddenly. You seem to have forgotten
how people will talk, or you wouldn't have given them so much reason for
it."

"If people have nothing else to do but invent gossip, then that is their
loss, not mine."

"Your father and I have decided to send you abroad for a year. We are
willing to make the sacrifices to meet that expense. The School of Art
in Munich is excellent, and you can stay as paying guest with Marcia
Spiegelberger. You remember, she was at school with me and married that
German professor? She has several young girls from England as paying
guests. I had a letter from her at Christmas telling me all about it."

"Beating up trade," Penny said dryly.

"You always wanted to go abroad. A year in Munich would be delightful."

Yes a year ago she would have leaped at this chance, but a year ago her
family would not even have considered the idea for one moment.

Even last summer they had refused to allow her to accept an invitation
abroad with a school friends. They had kept her firmly beside them, and
it was beside them that she had met David. Now that she didn't want to
leave England, they told her to go. She wanted to laugh, but the look on
her mother's face checked her in time.

She said, "You don't have to bother with all this trouble and expense.
Mother, let's go out to dinner, and I can talk about David to you. And
then come up to Oxford with me on Sunday, and meet him, and Mr.
Chaundler, and see things for yourself. And, really, everything will
fall into its right proportion. At present it is all distorted. You make
falling in love sound a tragedy. It isn't something to mourn over. You
should be so happy, along with me."

"If you refuse to go to Munich," Mrs. Lorrimer said, ignoring Penny's
words--in fact. Penny was thinking, she hadn't listened at all for the
last few minutes, and this argument was becoming a monologue--'then you
cannot expect your father and me to go on supporting you. We shall not
pay for your expenses in London. That's decided." "Then I shall support
myself," Penny said quickly. She was angry again.

Don't, she thought, don't flare up. Keep calm. Argue. Don't get angry.

Argue.

Mrs. Lorrimer gave a short laugh.

"How?" she demanded. What a child Penelope was! She rose abruptly,
gathering bag and furs and gloves with a hand that was now decided and
sure.

"I

have a headache," she said, 'and so I'll go to my hotel. I shall see you
to-morrow, and we can discuss this again after you have had time to
think about it."

"I don't need time. Mother. I know the answer now," Penny said. There
was a hard, hot lump in her throat, and her eyes smarted as if they had
been stung by salt water. She bit her Up.

"Please come with me on Sunday."

"Neither you nor I go on Sunday. This entanglement with David Bosworth
ends now. You are not in love with him: you are only infatuated by the
idea of love. All girls are at the age of nineteen. I shall see you
to-morrow at half-past eight for breakfast at my hotel. We can make
arrangements then." The dogmatic note left her voice suddenly.

"Really, Penelope, you have been such a worry to us. You will never know
how upset we have been until you have a daughter of your own."

Mrs. Lorrimer waited at the door, but Penelope did not run towards her
to kiss her, to ask her forgiveness, as Moira would have done.

Penelope had always been a determined, at times unmanageable, child.

Now she had turned away and had walked to the window. She was saying in
a strained voice, "I don't have to come to breakfast totell you what I
have decided. I've decided that you are much more interested in your own
peace of mind than in my happiness. You want to regulate my happiness so
that it suits yours. You want me to choose the kind of man you would
choose, have the same formal engagement and wedding that you had, have a
house like yours, furnished like yours, have friends like yours or even
share your friends, until my whole life becomes an echo of yours."

"Penelope!"

Penny's voice calmed down, but as she turned to face her mother her eyes
were still angry.

"I am sorry. Mother, that I had to speak that way, but you left me no
choice."

"I never thought that any daughter of mine----" Mrs. Lorrimer's voice
broke.

Then she quickly regained control of herself.

They remained standing there, Mrs. Lorrimer nursing her hurt pride and
wounded affection. Penny openly defiant. It was Penny who broke the
uncomfortable moment.

"This is really silly she said, and forced a smile. She came forward
towards the door.

"Look, Mother, come and have i cup of tea, and I'll talk about what I
feel, and then you'l understand."

"You have talked quite enough already," Mrs. Lorrime: said, her voice
low but staccato once more, as she accentuated each word.

"You are being both senseless and ignorant.

Penny's anger surged back, and this time she did not can if she dealt a
blow that hurt.

"If David Bosworth were Georgi Fenton-Stevens, would you raise the
objection that I am to young to think of marrying him? Or that you did
not know him well enough? Or would you refuse his invitation to lunci in
Oxford?" "Yes, I should," her mother said. But they both knew, a their
eyes met, that it was not exactly the truth.

Mrs. Lorrimer had to walk several streets before she found the taxicab
rank.

This allowed her anger to cool sufficiently before she entered the musty
cab with her dignity restored Outwardly she was a tall, quietly dressed
lady of middle age who had achieved the right mixture of expensive dow
dines and colour less charm to prove her social position. Inwardly her
emotions were so roused that she could not even thini logically. It had
been a long time, anyway, since Mrs. Lor rimer had tried self-analysis;
so long, in fact, that she ha lost that gift.

By the end of the journey to her hotel she had convincec herself that
she had indeed only acted for Penelope's good that she had been wise and
kind as well as right, and that Penelope had been unwise, unkind, and
terribly wrong. I an not trying to arrange her life, Mrs. Lorrimer
decided: I an only trying to prevent her from making any mistakes whict
she will surely regret. And I am not a snob.

To prove that she gave the driver a gracious smile as sh( tipped him.

The man responded with a pleasant good-day-- she always got on well with
servants. Her confidence was one more restored by the time she entered
the hotel, even if th idea of a revolt against her authority still
rankled. The wa^ to deal with any revolt was with a firm hand.

She had arrive in London just in time.

Penny was looking down gloomily at the bowl of primrose; when Lillian
Marston arrived. Marston, who had been invitee to the tea party had
thought it would be a good idea to come late: by that time all the
family news would be exhausted, and conversation could become general.
There was nothing so boring, Marston considered, as to have to listen to
news about people whom you didn't know, unless it was the polite
explanation of why they were worth talking about.

"Sorry I'm so late," Marston said, concealing her surprise at finding
Lorrimer alone.

"Had a good party?" She helped herself from the plate of chocolate
biscuits.

She chose the armchair, stretched her long, slender legs comfortably,
and ate the biscuit thoughtfully.

"I've had a rotten day," she said. "Everything went wrong." Then she
noticed the small pool of tea near her feet.

"The roof is leaking or something, I do believe. Have you any tea to
wash this biscuit down, or did you spill it all on the carpet?"

Penny turned away from the primroses and began to search for a piece of
blotting-paper. Then she knelt on the floor-- which was one good way of
hiding her face--and, with her head bent, tried to mop up the damp
circle on the carpet.

"It seems to save soaked in," she said in a stifled voice. She sat back
on her heels and surveyed the stain.

"Oh, what a mess!" she said, and threw the blotting-paper on the floor.

"Oh, what a mess," she repeated dismally.

Marston's smile faded, and her favourite eyebrow curved in real
surprise.

"Don't worry about the Aubusson," she said. "Another spot or two won't
spoil its charm." And just what was the mess, she wondered.

Penny searched for her handkerchief and blew her nose violently.

"Spring colds are a blight," Marston said, and turned her head to look
out of the window.

"Better take care of it. They go on and on and spoil all your fun. Are
you going out tonight?"

"No. Mother has a headache."

"Well, it might be a good idea if we had dinner together. Or it might be
still a better idea if you went to bed and I brought you nourishing
jellies."

"My cold isn't as bad as that," Penny said, rising from her knees,
suddenly businesslike as she found a cup and saucer and poured some tea
into it.

"I'm all right," she said, and burst intotears.

Marston looked with embarrassment towards the bowl of primroses.

"That is just the right shade of green for them," st decided.

"Even the imitation mahogany looks all right unde neath them." She
studied the desk as a whole. An idea se emt to please her.

"It would make a pretty still-life--abstract dra\ ings over a desk; one
Impressionist painting of a murderf cow, I think, waiting for more
impressions to be added; ar there at the side, quite unpaintable, a bowl
of primroses. Sti] lifes should have a moral attached: the only excuse
for ben still is to run deep, isn't it? The trouble is that, although it
a good idea, I could never use it. I keep having good ide, that are no
use to me.

Just never could paint-a still-lif Probably, with my present technique,
the whole thing wou look like a study of a couple of fried eggs. It is a
strange thil how a primrose is not a primrose and a pigeon on the gra is
nothing but alas, once I start painting them. But then, I'l always my
camera." She paused, and watched Lorrimer refle lively--who was now
standing at the window pretending look down into the street.

"Shall I go, or may I have anoth biscuit?"

Penny turned away from the window, and gave Marston small, shamefaced
smile.

"Don't go," she said.

"If you dor mind sitting there and watching this performance." Her 1
trembled slightly, "Oh, damn," she said, "I must look a cor plete fool."
She sat down on the bed, and looked at the te tray which she had
arranged so carefully.

"Funny how yoi whole life can be altered in an hour," she said.

"Everythn seemed so perfect, and then it wasn't." She half sighed. "O
well

Marston has anyone on this floor a copy of TJ Tim est "I must admit that
I'm finding this conversation difficult follow," Marston said.

"But I know that Neri has The Time if you really want it. She gets it in
order to cut out all t) small paragraphs of our stupidity--the woman who
divorc her husband twice and marries him for a third time; the mi who
writes to the editor, on the day after the Nazis come power, about the
nesting habits of the yellow-tailed blue-t a picture of the long line of
feathers bobbing towards pre se tat ion at Court opposite a picture of
the unemployme queues in Jarrow; the carefully worded trial, which
deceiv nobody, of the two Guardsmen in Hyde Park. She sends the to her
cousin who edits a paper in India. I suggested that sl would find us
much more ludicrous in some other newspapel but Neri only smiled
politely. I think the prestige of The Times lends a bizarre quality to
the cuttings which she sends. But she did show signs of alarm when I
told her that her sense of humour was becoming quite English."

"I sometimes wonder why she does stay here. Or even why she came in the
first place. She arrived disliking us."

"And on a scholarship founded by an Englishwoman."

The two girls exchanged glances and began to laugh.

At least, Marston thought, we have reached this stage. No more tears,
thank God.

"I am looking for a job," Penny said suddenly.

"Hence The Times."

"No much help there these days. Quite the best thing is to have a friend
who has a friend who knows some one. Finding a job is just a matter of
the right introductions." Then her voice became serious.

"What sort of job, Lorrimer? and why?"

"Something to keep me alive."

"You don't seem fussy, anyway."

"I can't afford to be. You see, my family want me to leave London, and I
don't want to. That's why." "I see," Marston said, but she didn't. She
searched for a cigarette.

Perhaps the family had lost its money, couldn't afford to keep Lorrimer
in London any longer. That could be. Lots of people were losing their
money nowadays.

"Then you really do want a job? Sort of declaration of independence? ' "
Yes." And much more so that you imagine, Lillian. This is my
independence for which I'm fighting. Penny thought.

"It all happened so suddenly, I'm still at the stage of hardly believing
it."

Money trouble definitely, Marston decided.

"Depressing thing a depression," she said.

"Daddy was calculating at Christmas how much longer he could afford a
daughter in London. Still, we can't go on being depressed for ever. No
doubt, some one somewhere is thinking up, at this very minute, another
war to end unemployment. Then all you have to do is to make munitions,
and you can buy three fur coats."

She became serious again as she added, "It is strange, isn't it, that a
war produces a boom, when you probably have no inclination to enjoy
anything, and that peace--when you really feel like having a good
time--produces a depression. It is all quite beyond me.

But then, I'm an artist, and artists never solve problems: they only
state them. And bewilder people. Which is known as the incommunicable
soul.

Primroses into two fried eggs."

"Well, I shall have to try and make mine communicable," Penny said.

"I suppose I should try for a job where I can use | the only thing I've
been trained for."

"On the contrary. You'll get a much better job if you know I absolutely
nothing about it. Training, if you take it seriously, J is only a
drawback. If you want to be a politician, then you | study pig-farming
or bird-life. If you want to be a diplomat, | then you study medieval
history or the Significance of the js Vase Shape in the Ping-Wing-Ting
Dynasty. If you want to J be a journalist, then you take a degree in
classics. Quite j simple, darling. Throw away your brushes and oils and
char- | coal and smock, and become a private secretary. You can't | type
or do shorthand.

Splendid. You'll make a wonderful secretary."

Penny smiled obediently, but she didn't answer. She was watching the
slate roof of the house opposite and the uneven row of chimney-pots with
their metal helmets, slashed and shaped like thirteenth-century armour,
revolving slowly with the creaking dignity of a knight, or hanging
loosely askew, jolted occasionally by the wind into a brief, apologetic
hiccup. Above them was a sky showing its first real spring blue, with
soft white clouds chasing each other and a sun already slipping towards
the west. The light held the warm colour of evening, and the grey walls
of the house were less cold.

There, just under the drunken chimney-pots were the nursery windows on
the third floor. Any minute now she would see a bright head of curls
above a small round face, all freshly pink and white from its evening
bath, with short pyjama- covered arms stretched up to grip the highest
of the three polished brass rods which guarded the window. In the
daytime, whenever he heard a car's brakes before his house, he I would
appear (probably he had clambered up on a nursery I chair to raise his
short body to the proper level); he would twist and crane his neck
excitedly to see who it was, losing interest if it were a stranger,
suddenly motionless if it were his mother or father. In the evening, at
this time, he would watch for them coming home or leaving for a party.
And fl then he would stare out at a world that ignored him, resting His

his forehead against the middle rod of polished brass, until a crisply
starched nanny would catch him under his armpits and swing him off to
bed.

"What time is it, anyway?" Marston was asking.

"I'll scrounge a copy of The Times for you if that would make you
happier, and then I've some 'phoning to do. After that we'll go to
Marinelli's, and we can discuss jobs with spaghetti to give us
inspiration. It it good for conversation--no need to worry about choking
on bones. So bear up, darling.

After all, if there isn't a job to he had there is always Edinburgh."
"There isn't," Penny said.

"That's quite final. It must be a job.

I'll measure ribbon by the yard if necessary." And I must 'phone, too,
she remembered. I must 'phone David. Only, I must get my thoughts
straightened out first of all. I must not worry him, make him think
things are worse than they are. Or perhaps I should wait until
to-morrow. Perhaps by that time Mother will have understood that David
and I are in earnest, that we cannot be divided and separated. If only
she would come to Oxford on Sunday, if only she could see us together
...

"It's six o'clock," Penny said, finishing her answer to Marston. A small
bright head had appeared at the opposite window. It was bent, trying to
see who was in the street in front of its house. And then, finding
nothing, it looked across to Penny's window. She rose and went forward.
The striped arm waved vigorously. She waved back.

"Do you still keep this up?" Marston was openly amused.

"Who is he, anyway?"

"I haven't the foggiest," Penny said, turning away from the window.

Her voice was normal once more, and she was really smiling. To-morrow at
breakfast, she was thinking hopefully  ...  everything would come out
all right after all.

"But he can't be left to stand at a window, waiting for some one to look
up and wave. Can he?"

"I'll write a reference for you. Kind to children and dogs, impervious
to men. Why, any woman would take you on as a governess anywhere on that
recommendation." Marston moved to the door.

"I'll scout around for The Times," she said casually. Mentally she was
already listing the people she knew who could be useful in finding a job
for Lorrimer. She would start 'phoning them right away. And keep on,
until she got some satisfactory answer.

Not so impervious. Penny was thinking. Not so impervious. She touched
the soft petals of the primroses, letting her fingers ride over them
lightly.

To give David happiness, that was her happiness. To have him love her,
that was her life. Without him her heart tightened. The primroses
blurred over; their outline was lost, as if some one were shaking them
in front of her eyes until she could see them no more.

Marston did not return until almost an hour had passed. By that time
Penny had bathed her face and eyes, and was beginning to look natural
again.

Marston felt a great relief: she had begun to regret her blithe
invitation to dinner, in case Lorrimer might be-tragic all through it.

As they were reaching the hall they met the parlour maid who smiled with
pleasure at not having to climb to the top floor after all. It was a
telephone call for Miss. Lorrimer.

"Probably Mother," Penny said hopefully.

"Perhaps She didn't finish, but ran towards the telephone. She talked
there for a considerable time.

When she joined Marston again, who had been pretending to be interested
in a three-months-old copy of the Tatler, she was so white and wan that
Marston said nothing at all.

Penny broke the silence as they walked towards Tottenham Court Road.

"That was David," she said, and her voice was as colour less as her
cheeks.

"His father is dead."

Chapter Twenty-six.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

A sense of duty is a tormenting thing: if you do what you feel you ought
to do you often wish you hadn't; if you don't do it you are left
worrying in another direction. There is no escape from it, because there
is no escape from yourself. And so Penny, next morning, dressed
carefully and slowly, in spite of a cold that had increased to the point
of making her want to stay in bed for the day, and set out for her
mother's hotel.

The dinner last night with Marston had been a failure. This theory that
one should be very, very controlled and, oh, so brave was all wrong. It
would have been better for her in every way if she could have let
herself recite her woes in diluted form to Marston, instead of
discussing the design of stage sets in the new Komisarjevski production
of Grand Hotel while all the time she was thinking about David. David
and his father. David and his sister, Margaret. David and her family.
David. The only result had been the worst night in all her life.

She had fallen asleep by three o'clock, worn out by arguing with
herself, "and had awakened an hour later with the postponed tears
drenching her pillow. The dream that had aroused her had been so vivid
that she lay taut in the narrow bed, feeling the cramp in her tense
body, hardly daring to move because of the sharp pain which would then
twist her muscles and threaten in its intensity to hold her powerless
for ever. The skin on her face was tight, as if it had been sewn up to
her scalp, and there was the taste of salt on her lips. She had lain
there, watching the green-grey sky, as unreal as a pool of stagnant
waters under a threatened thunderstorm, seep into the tight walls of the
room. And the dream was played over again, mistily, inaccurately, as
dreams were remembered. But still threatening and hideous.

They mean nothing, she told herself, as she watched the black hearse and
four black horses move so slowly over the endless road. She was walking
behind it, and yet not walking, for her feet moved without her volition.
She was weeping, weeping bitterly, remembering how cruel she had been,
cruel wicked cruel to think that a daughter of mine sharper than a
serpent's tooth, cruel, cruel to her mother when her mother was alive.
And now it was too late, too late for anything except this pillow, wet
and horrible to the touch of her cheek. Nothing now but this endless
road and Margaret Bosworth standing black and still against the bleak
horizon. Nothing else, no one else on the anonymous background, on the
flat, colour less land flowing into the abyss of the horizon. No David.
It was then that the tears for her mother became tears shed for herself.

Dreams are only dreams, she had told herself. She had turned over the
pillow, as if by turning away the wet linen she could blot out its
cause.

Yet it was a relief to enter her mother's room and to hear her calm
voice, very much alive, giving instructions for breakfast. Tea, not
coffee.

Porridge, with salt. Crisp toast, unbuttered. Three and a half minutes
for the eggs. Marmalade bitter not sweet. And, out of relief. Penny's
kiss on the up turned cheek was more than dutiful. Her mother noddec
approvingly.

And Penny, with sudden new hope and a confidence to match her mother's,
smiled too.

It is going to of perfectly all right, they both thought. Both, sure of
having won their way, were tactfully thoughtful of each other as
breakfast began with charming evasion. Those who wor must help those who
had lost to feel at ease. Mrs. Lorrirnei gave full news about Edinburgh,
and Penny listened and askec questions dutifully, privately allowing
herself to smile ova the dreadful predicament of an Edinburgh ever
forced to d( without the Lorrimer family.

Mrs. Lorrimer noted her daughter's concentration. She i; making amends,
she thought, and she went on talking witt increasing confidence.

"A charming city, Munich," she said. t'. know you will love it. And
you'll enjoy the family: it isn' the usual dull professor's; he is
interested in politics, and thi house is filled with remarkable people.
I believe he is going; to have quite an important position in the new
Government. And then, noticing her daughter's expression, she haltec
abruptly.

Penny rose suddenly and walked to the window. They face each other
across the strange room.

"This isn't much use, i; it?" Penny said quietly.

"Because you won't listen."

Penny shrugged her shoulders.

"And you won't even discuss the matter," Mrs. Lorrime: went on, with
growing indignation.

Penny stirred restlessly, as if she wanted to be free of al this endless
argument. Her mother noticed that, and her voici was now angry.

"What hold has this Bosworth got over you? she demanded harshly.

"What is there between you? Answe: me, Penelope."

At first Penny did not answer. She stood there, her eye; thoughtful as
she remembered David.

"It is time that one of us spoke frankly," she said, after the long
pause.

"I am not David's mistress--if that is what yol have been trying to
learn."

Mrs. Lorrimer looked shocked, but there was relief in her eyes.

Penny pitied her for the pretence. She went on, "I don't fee proud of
that at all. It only proves I trusted David less than he was willing to
trust me. And that I hadn't the courage. I believed that I would be
injuring the family if I didn't behave as you trusted me to behave, but
now I see that you didn't trust me. Or you would not have made this
journey, you wouldn't have insisted on these questions."

Mrs. Lorrimer gestured vaguely in protest as she looked unhappily at
Penny.

"We trust you. Penny," she said faintly. "Of course we do."

Her voice strengthened.

"But young men are not to be trusted. Young men of to-day have no sense
of morality. They forget that if a man loves a woman he should never do
anything which will make her an object of scorn."

"Then morality must only be a matter of appearance. For it seems that a
man may have affairs with other women, and, provided he is discreet, his
wife isn't an object of scorn. Aren't cheats to be scorned? And aren't
there so many of them, hiding behind appearances?

Isn't that more to be scorned than a man and woman who are loyal and
honest to each other?"

Mrs. Lorrimer steadied herself by a deep breath.

"You talk nothing but nonsense. It is bad enough to inflict it on my
ears, but it would be worse if you inflicted it on your own life."

"That is why it would be better if I found a job. Neither you nor Father
will believe I am serious about David unless I do."

"Your father will Mrs. Lorrimer began, and then halted as her voice
broke.

"And Grandfather?" Penny asked suddenly.

"He would not be so angry with me, would he?" She crossed the room then
to her mother. Mrs. Lorrimer drew angrily away from her touch.

"Don't coming running to us she began, and once more did not finish the
sentence. But she will, Mrs. Lorrimer thought hopefully.

She will come back to us.

"When Grandfather comes to visit Oxford he will see David. He knows that
Penny stopped explaining, as she remembered that it might not be exactly
tactful to say that she had written more about David to her grandfather
than she had done to her parents. Penny looked quickly at her mother,
but Mrs. Lorrimer had not heard that last phrase. She was lost in her
own calculations.

She has never been accustomed to poverty, Mrs. Lorrime was thinking.

She will come back to us. If only, meanwhile she does nothing rash;
nothing a create scandal and ruin he life. And ours. She had talked
wildly. But all young peopi talked wildly. A little of the harder
discipline of life, th responsibility and worry of earning her own
livelihood, migh be what she did need to give her some practical sense,
ti make her more manageable.

"Promise me you will do nothing rash, Penelope," Mrs. Loi rimer said
unhappily.

"Nothing rash," Penny agreed.

Mrs. Lorrimer looked at her daughter's determined facf and felt a sudden
fear.

"You will finish this term," she toli her, 'and come to us for the
Easter holidays, naturally. Mean while it would be better if you did not
see this David Bos worth."

"But I must see David, Mother. His father has just----"

" His father is of no interest to me," Mrs. Lorrimer sail impatiently.

Still watching her daughter's face, noticing th open rebellion in her
eyes, she added angrily, 'you have shocked me and hurt me, Penelope.

It seems as if you ar shameless."

"And what have I to be ashamed about? It seems to m that you would be
worried whatever I did. If I went about with a lot of men you would
worry.

If I go about with on' man you are worried. If I didn't go about with
any men a all you would still worry. What am I to do? One thing won't
do, and that is to live a life crippled by what peopi think. The issue
is not whether I am happy or unhappy in m; own choice of life, but what
will people think or what wil people say. For that is what you are
afraid of. Mother.

But i seems to me that there are always people in this world wh( will
say unpleasant things about you, no matter what yoi do."

Mrs. Lorrimer stared in amazement. No one, she was thinking, has ever
said or could ever say anything unpleasant about me! Her annoyance
increased with Penelope for even having suggested such a disturbing
idea. She made no answer, madf no move to acknowledge the good-bye, and
began packing her small overnight case. She waited until the door had
closec and Penelope's footsteps had died away. Then she sat dowr on the
edge of a chair, a silver-backed hairbrush still in her hand.

"I did everything possible," she told it, but she found no consolation
in the words. She glanced at the neat diamond watch on her wrist: the
train on which her seat was reserved would leave in forty minutes. She
ought to hurry to catch it, for to-night there was the Mathieson
dinner-party, followed by the Benefit Concert for Ruins Restored. Yet,
if she caught the later train, she would be able to appear with the
Ladies' Committee on the platform at the concert even if she might have
to miss the dinner-party. Yes, she could take the later train.

The decision made, her movements became businesslike and crisp.

Quickly she finished packing, pinned her hat securely on to her hair;
fur gloves, umbrella, nothing left behind except a shilling on the
dressing tray and half a crown on the dressing-table.

In the taxi she gave the Bosworths' address in Cory's Walk. It was an
odd address, easily remembered. And the way she had met it had helped to
etch it into her memory. She had found an envelope addressed to David
Bosworth, stamped for posting, but torn open and empty as if Penelope
had wanted to add a postscript and had used another envelope. She had
found it just after Penelope had left Edinburgh when the Christmas
holidays were over. She had been doubly annoyed: to think her daughter
was still writing to him, to think that she treated stamped envelopes so
lightly. She had held the envelope in her hand in Penelope's bedroom,
wondering if she would send it to Penelope in London with a reprimand
about carelessness and extravagance, and the address had become fixed in
her mind.

Providential, perhaps; as if she had not been meant to fail.

It was a long drive across the heart of London to Cory's Walk, but it
gave her time to prepare her brief visit with all the skill of an
invading general. When they reached Cory's Walk at last, she was taken
aback.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" she asked the driver.

"If you want Cory's Walk," he said. He shrugged his shoulders, and
settled back to wait. She'd never find another cab around here.

The same thought struck Mrs. Lorrimer.

"Wait here," she said abruptly.

How miserable these brick houses were, streets and streets of little,
dirty-looking boxes. Yet, judging from the children and people she had
seen, these weren't slums.

The children had been clean, the men and women on the streets were
respectfully dressed. In Edinburgh, she thought even the slums look
better, even the slums are built of gooc solid stone. The people who
live in Edinburgh slums do not know how lucky they really are. As she
waited on the littii path which led to the front door she noted that the
curtain' were drawn over the windows of the house, as in the
neighbouring ones. But at that moment the door opened, and a tall,
large-boned young woman surprised Mrs. Lorrimer b; staring haughtily at
her and saying, "Yes?" in an authoritativt voice. Mrs. Lorrimer found
herself explaining that she wa; Mrs. Lorrimer. Could she speak to Mr.
Bosworth?

"I think you had better come in, don't you?" the young^ woman said
coldly; turned on her heel abruptly, leaving Mr." Lorrimer to close the
door and follow. They went into i room at the back of the house.

Untidy and not particularly well dusted. Yet not sordid. Indeed, it was
surprising to fine a room like this behind the unappetizing brick walls
of Cory'; Walk. Mrs. Lorrimer tried to ignore the books and picture; and
other signs of civilization and concentrated on the won furniture
instead. Then she looked at the young woman, and was momentarily shocked
to find she was being just as eloselj appraised. And with resentment, it
seemed.

"You are Penelope Lorrimer's mother?" Mrs. Lorrimer said she was, with a
lift of her eyebrow; which had routed many a junior committee member.

"I thought so," the young woman went on, quite unrouted "Peculiar name.
And then, of course I knew you were Scotct by your accent. Wait here and
I'll find Margaret for you."

Mrs. Lorrimer stared indignantly at the door which ha closed so
determinedly.

What an extremely obnoxious creature she thought, and ignorant too. Knew
Mrs. Lorrimer by he: accent, indeed. Didn't she also know that "Scotch'
was usec only in reference to whisky? Probably she would pronounci
'loch' as 'lock," and say "Auld Lang Syne' as if it had a zed ii it. A
most disagreeable creature in appearance as well as ii manner, Mrs.
Lorrimer decided, quite forgetting that if he own instructions to her
daughters were a standard, then thi; young woman's plain hair, lack of
lipstick, sensible tweet suit, and laced shoes should have seemed
excellent.

The door opened. A thin, white-faced girl in a black dres; said, "I am
Margaret Bosworth. Did you wish to see me?

Behind her the tweed-suited woman loomed like a gigantic bull-terrier
waiting to pounce.

"I have a taxi waiting outside," Mrs. Lorrimer said pointedly, 'and so I
shall't keep you very long." She paused, cleared her throat.

"Actually," she continued, her voice rising half an octave, "I came here
to see your father. But if he is indisposed, perhaps I can talk to you.
It is about my daughter Penelope and your brother." She paused
gracefully there, but the two young women opposite her remained
obstinately silent. She had the feeling that the dark girl's eyes were
mocking her--take a good look at me and at this house. Yes, this is
David Bosworth's home, and I am his sister. And what do you think of us?

Mrs. Lorrimer said hurriedly, "They had been seeing each other very
constantly, I believe. Her father and I object, because she is much too
young and because we feel that she is taking it all too seriously."

"You object," the tall girl in the tweed suit said, and then laughed.

"What do you think David's sister feels about it all?"

That idea was so new to Mrs. Lorrimer that she could not even answer.

"I don't think you need worry about your daughter," Margaret Bosworth
said.

"She seemed to me to be quite capable of taking excellent care of
herself. I agree that the whole thing is ridiculous, but for another
reason altogether.

She will simply ruin my brother's career.

In fact, she has begun to do that already. If he must marry, then he
could have chosen, much more wisely, some one who comes from a family
with "useful connexions." I believe that's the accepted phrase and
custom. And I may add that he has met several girls like that at Oxford.
But, instead, he is absolutely determined on marrying your daughter. She
has ruined his ambition: all he wants is a job so that he can support
her. It is a complete waste of a young man of his calibre. That is how
we all see it. But it is no use talking to him.

I know. I've tried. I suppose that was one of the purposes of your
visit--that I should tell David what you and your husband feel?"

Mrs. Lorrimer had risen to her feet. A pink circle burned on each cheek.

"And your father agrees with what you have said?" she asked icily.

Margaret Bosworth did not reply. An odd, hollow-eyed creature, restless
and unsatisfied, Mrs. Lorrimer decided.

The other girl spoke.

"Mr. Bosworth died yesterday."

Mrs. Lorrimer stared at Margaret Bosworth's black dress "I'm so sorry,"
she said, in embarrassment.

"I did not know. But they had not told her. Penelope had not told her,
no oni had told her anything. She had been put into an intolerabli
situation.

"I don't think," the other young woman was saying, 'that yoi need worry
about your daughter getting married too soon Not now. It will be years
before David Bosworth can thini of marriage." Margaret Bosworth still
said nothing, but her silence under lined that last sentence.

Mrs. Lorrimer had nothing to gather up except her corn posure. There was
nothing left of the motions of good-byf save to walk towards the door,
to bow slightly, to say good day.

The tweed-suited young woman followed Mrs. Lorrimer am stopped her at
the gate.

"Your daughter is not only spoiling David Bosworth's future," she said,
in her brusque voice, 'bu she is also spoiling Margaret's. I thought you
ought to realiz< that as well." Then she turned on her heel in that
abrupt wa^ of hers, and stalked into the house.

Mrs. Lorrimer's hand was shaking as she searched for her pocket
handkerchief in her bag. It took some moments befon she could speak
without anger and give the driver direction; to the station. Her
indignation grew as the taxi jolted throughout city traffic. What right
had these two women, anyway, t( decide David Bosworth's life for him? Or
to pass judgmen on Penelope? Of course, that was Penelope's reward for
having tied herself up with such people. But it really was toe much that
she should have put her mother into such ai embarrassing situation. One
thing only had been achieved b; that most unpleasant visit: at least
Mrs. Lorrimer had found out that Bosworth was serious about Penelope,
and that wa; a healthier state of affairs than if he had been merely
amusing; himself. Still, it was little consolation. In some ways it
relievec Mrs. Lorrimer's mind, in others it increased her worry. Nt use
talking to him ...  I know. I've tried. Remembering the bitterness in
Margaret Bosworth's voice, Mrs. Lorrimer felt i twinge almost of
sympathy for David, and then her mounting anger drove it away. All she
had left was the very deep, ver^ sincere, and very sustaining feeling of
self-pity.

Chapter Twenty-seven.

DAVID ALONE

On the day his father died David caught the late afternoon train to
London, telephoned Penny, and then spent a painful evening with Margaret
and Florence Rawson.

It had been something of a shock to find that Florence Rawson not only
had taken over his room, but was also settling herself in the
sitting-room for the rest of the evening, as if Margaret needed her
support. David abandoned the idea of privacy, and with no more delay
began questioning his sister about his father's death. Margaret resented
that, as if she found in these natural questions some form of hidden
criticism. Her control over her emotions ended, and they broke into
violent tears. David found himself suddenly left alone in the room with
Florence Rawson, listening with dismay at Margaret's footsteps running
up the flight of stairs to her bedroom.

Florence Rawson did not stir from the armchair. She waited, perhaps
hoping that he would have to ask her for the information. She had been
there this afternoon, and he had not.

"Leave Margaret in peace," she said, "I calmed her down this evening.

Now you have ruined it."

"And how delighted you are." He left the room as abruptly as Margaret
had done, but he closed the door quietly instead of slamming it, feeling
his arm become tense with his repressed anger. He stood in the dark hall
for a few minutes, and then moved towards the staircase.

The house lay in silence: Margaret's storm of weeping had ended as
quickly as it had begun. He paused at his father's door, and his hand
half lifted as if to knock. Habit was hard to break. He entered quietly
as he had done a thousand times before.

He sat down beside his father's bed. This too he had done a thousand
times before ...  He stayed there for over an hour.

Margaret heard him as he was leaving. Perhaps she had been waiting for
this moment. She came running downstairs, and caught his arm with some
show of affection. Why hadn't she done that when he had arrived, instead
of treating him as if he had been an interfering stranger?

"Must you go back to Oxford to-night?" she asked half worriedly, half
pathetically.

"If Miss. Rawson allows me to have my room I'll stay here as I planned."

"She has been such a good friend, David."

"A better friend would have left the family alone tonight."

"But she has been so wonderful. She made all the arrangements about the
funeral this afternoon."

David looked very hard at his sister.

"I came to town to do that," he said briefly.

"And it was Florence who 'phoned you this afternoon about Father." "I
know," he said, and this time he could not keep the bitterness out of
his voice.

"And she spoke with the Vicar too, didn't she, when he came to call
about the church service?"

"She was such a help, really, especially when there was no man in the
household to take charge." David said nothing.

"Look, David, I'll make up a bed for you on the sitting- room couch.

After all we have a lot to talk about."

"We can talk about business matters at the weekend. After Friday."

Friday was the day that Rawson had arranged for his father's funeral.

"I'll make plans to stay in town until Sunday."

There was coldness in his voice, and Margaret sensed his revulsion.

She drew apart from him, letting her strong white fingers drop from his
arm.

"Don't take it so hard, David. After all we both knew that some day soon
he would die. It is a miracle that he did live so long. And he died so
peacefully. David, don't!"

David said harshly, "We might have been living on another planet for all
the use we were to him when he did die."

"But I've told you already that he seemed better this morning. He was
all right when I left to go to the Bach Society luncheon. When Florence
and I came back here we found him----"

" When he became ill last Sunday evening, why did you not let me know?"

"I've told you already that I thought it was nothing serious. You know
how he had these ups and downs. He would not let me even call a doctor
on Monday. He seemed to be improving. And then, to-day  ..." "Yes, I
know," David said heavily. But all the telling in the world would not
drive away this sense of guilt. Didn't Margaret have it too? He stared
at her. In her face there was more unhappiness than grief. And in that
moment the last spark of affection which he had for her nickered and
went out; "I'll see you on Friday," he said abruptly, and left her.

The lamplight shone meanly over Cory's Walk, plunging the end houses in
a dark pool of shadow. His footsteps echoed loudly on the lonely
pavement, and quickened. But even in the busier street he still saw his
father's quiet face, so white and somehow so much younger with all its
surface strangely smoothed out by death. He remembered the still room,
the piles of magazines no longer to be read, the books and newspapers
for ever abandoned.

His sense of failure grew. What he must do for Margaret, he suddenly
realized, would be done not out of affection that had died too to-night
but from this sense of having failed his father at a time when his
father needed him. He must not fail with Margaret now. That would be
another failure towards his father.

He began to see what must be done. Margaret's secret grudge against life
was that she never had a chance. She felt she had been cheated, first by
her father's illness, which had impoverished them, secondly by her
mother's death. Now she was convinced that she would have been a
brilliant success as a concert pianist if only she had been given the
opportunity. And the only way to stop a lifetime complaint of 'might
have been' or 'would have been' was to give her the chance to prove to
herself her real value. The Rawson woman would not be a problem then:
she was only a part of Margaret's present pattern of insecurity. Take
away Margaret's grudge against life, the feeling that she was the victim
of a world dominated by men, and Rawson's power to influence would be
ended.

It was a theory at least, David decided, as he entered the Underground
and joined the small queue for tickets, and i was a theory that might
work.

Some theory had to be pu into practice.

Otherwise Margaret's life would be permanently twisted. People who kept
telling themselves that they nevei had a chance seemed to use up as much
of their energie; excusing their failure that they had little power left
t( surmount it.

He looked at the faces of the hurrying crowd around him wondering
curiously what lay behind these masks. It see me the same kind of crowd
which had jostled past him las Sunday. Then he had been happy and
confident, and they ha appeared to him to be as carefree as himself. Now
he realize they hid the knowledge of death and suffering as well as thi
experience of joy and life.

It was strange how a human beinj could forget that so easily, perhaps
because individual mai tended to think that his experiences were in some
way unique He would admit that others had sorrow or happiness too, bu
not in this way, or at this time, or even to such a degree; for this was
the mark of his individuality. It was the reason, for instance, that a
man who had never known any serious illness and who entered a hospital
for the first time in his lift was shocked and amazed to discover that
there were sc many rooms in so many long corridors, so many wards witt
endless rows of beds, all filled with suffering. And not onl) during
these days when he knew pain too, but during the days that went before
and the days that came after, when he wa; well and unthinking of pain.
Before, he did not allow himself member that the suffering was always
there. For only by for to imagine, and afterwards, he tried very hard
not to re getting unhappiness and by concentrating on hope could i man
struggle through his life. The determined optimist or th potential
suicide: there was only that choice.

A train roared with express speed into the station. A mar caught David's
arm roughly, and pulled him from the edg< of the platform as the train
rushed past and the air suckec round their bodies.

"Bit too close there," the man said. He watched David's haggard face
carefully.

David nodded.

The man released his grip on David's arm and movec away. Probably it was
only by chance that the young cha; had walked so near the edge of the
platform as the express came through the station, but for a moment it
had looked like one of those suicides you read about in the papers. The
man, middle-aged, mildly prosperous, judging from his neat blue suit and
well-fed body, turned at a polite distance to look at that young chap
again. He was all right now: the young fool was keeping a reasonable
distance from the edge; he was standing still, too, as if he had got a
bit of a shock. Here was their train, anyway.

David, suddenly recovering from the paralysis which had attacked him as
the express had disappeared with its high whistle into the dark circle
of tunnel, moved forward to board the train with the crowd.

The man in the blue suit followed him, found a seat, and, after one last
glance at the chap who had nearly got himself killed, opened his
newspaper.

He had almost begun reading it while he was waiting on the platform.
Good job he hadn't.

David, grasping the chromium rail by which he stood, felt the reaction
strike him. What a damned silly thing to do, he thought. He could feel,
even now, the rush of the train bearing down on the platform, the
violent breath of wind which pulled at him as that middle-aged man had
held him by the arm. He hadn't even thanked the man properly; but it was
only now that he fully realized the danger and only now that he could be
properly grateful. He looked at his taut hand grasping the rail, sensed
the tenseness of his body.

"Well, you are still here," he told himself, 'and all in one piece." He
must be one of the determined optimists of this world after all, for
there was relief in his words.

He telephoned Penny from Paddington. The maid at Baker House was not
very forthcoming. It was too late for any messages to be delivered to
any room.

Too late. Against the rules. Too late. She wasted more time and energy
in telling him about the rules of the house than she would have done in
going to fetch Penelope.

He caught his train with a minute to spare, settled himself gloomily in
the corner seat of an empty compartment. It was unheated and draughty,
and under the poor light the dusty upholstered seats looked a stained
and dirty grey.

He had a book with him, but he didn't even try to read. He stared out of
the window, his eyes noting the crowding shapes of the tall houses
almost edging on to the railway line: the made more ugly by their
desolation at this time of rows of poorly lit houses giving way at last
to groups of suburban cottages and villas with thei windows confidently
pricking the darkness.

Then black stretches of fields and hedgerows, lengthen) houses became
more scattered, until the shapeless sl the night blotted out distance
and outline.

The c< came anonymous, and the window was a dark ruining his white, set
face and the dim compartment be On Sunday he had looked at these same
fields. C his father had been alive.

"We both knew that soon  ..." Margaret had said to-night.

Yes, we b and our minds were prepared. But sudden death v a. grim shock,
for its swiftness proved to those will how insecure life was.

That was something one's never fully prepared to face. And with that
knowie security there came a sense of urgency. What you came doubly
valuable: what you possessed was to b Your life then became a battle
against time.

He closed his eyes wearily ...  All right, be prac thinking of anything
except the things you must and arrange in the next few days.

You cou think in peace about those who had died. All ri Practical
things. First he must arrange with Geor; row his flat for this week-end
to give him a pl act Then Chaundler. He had to talk to Chaundler. The
one else to ask for advice. He was searching for a re) had decided
already what must be done about Mai he was still hoping that some other
suggestion could which would be easier for him to follow. For not
separate Penny from him. He was not going to lose His body was tired and
heavy. He was heartsick a Nothing is going to separate us, he thought
des per train wheels under his feet caught the rhythm of mockingly.
Nothing is going to separate us, nothin to separate us.

And nothing is, he told himself. Nothing, he addec Yet the fear which
had haunted him since he had t, Margaret would not lift from his heart.

Chapter Twenty-eight.

DECISION.

David had decided against Marinelli's to-night. For one thing, it was
Saturday, when the restaurant was most crowded. And, for another,
Marinelli's was enjoying success. What had once been a delightful
informality was now becoming a pattern of behaviour: the newcomers,
having discovered that conversation and laughter were interchanged
between various tables, made a determined habit of it. So David had
chosen another restaurant in Charlotte Street, where people were less
numerous and prices were more expensive. Privacy was always a luxury.
To-night, even if he could afford it less than ever, he must see Penny
alone.

He glanced round the dimly lighted room when he had ordered dinner.

Penny, after one glance at the menu and its price-list, had decided she
wanted only an omelette. David, avoiding her look of refusal, had added
hors d'oeuvre to precede the omelette, and a salad with Camembert to
follow. ) He was thinking that the definition of privacy had taken on a
strange meaning for him. In order to sit and talk to Penny in some peace
and comfort he must share her with at least thirty other people, the
sound of their voices, the subdued clatter of their plates.

Penny, watching him, saw him frown suddenly as if to cover some emotion.
She became aware of the deep unhappiness and strain in his face, which
until this moment he had disguised very well. But, as if he felt her
sudden scrutiny, the frown was forced away and his face became
expressionless once more, calm and serious above the dark suit and the
black tie. She stretched one arm impulsively across the small table and
let her hand rest on his for a moment.

"David," she said, and then could not say anything more. Only a few
minutes ago she had almost begun totell him her own troubles. But that
would have been a mistake. He must talk first, and once he told her all
his worries she could judge how much she could add to them--if at all.
It began to look as if her description of job-hunting, which she had
planned to make as amusing as possible in the telling, was going to be
quite unnecessary.

David's hand caught hers as it moved away, and held it.

"Darling," he said gently. And as his grip tightened, crushing the
signet ring he had given her at Christmas into her little finger so that
she winced, he said with a sudden rush of emotion,

"Penny, I need you. God, how I need you." He dropped her hand then, and
looked away as if his own vehemence had embarrassed him. Or was he
afraid?

And of what? He had spoken as if he had been saying goodbye.

Penny, easing the ring on her finger, felt an echo of his fear.

"But you will always have me, David."

"No matter what happens?" His eyes searched her face. His voice sounded
almost desperate.

"No matter," she said. She tried to smile.

"You will always be stuck with me. Poor old David."

He caught her hand again and held it. Gently this time, but firmly.

"Every day I am away from you I keep imagining you as I last saw you.

I keep remembering how wonderful, how truly wonderful, you are. Then I
meet you again, and you look the way you do, and you speak, and your
eyes light up for me; and I realize that when I was thinking of you,
wanting you, I never had imagined how wonderful you really are. You are
better than any dreams of you."

There was a pause. Penny's hand stirred in his, and then relaxed.

"What were you thinking?" he asked, watching her eyes.

Penny's colour deepened.

"That I want to hear you say that just as vehemently when you are
sixty." She thought over that.

"Darling, I do sound overconfident."

David shook his head.

"You haven't even begun to know your own power over----" He stopped,
released her hand. The waiter wheeled the table of hors d'ceuvre before
them.

"Well," Penny said, with pretended lightness as the waiter eventually
departed, 'if we are in a restaurant I suppose we may as well eat.

Besides, I had no lunch to-day ...  And if we weren't here, where else
could be talk? It is cold in the streets tonight."

David glanced at her quickly.

"So you are in rebellion too?" he asked quietly.

Penny nodded.

"You know, David, sometimes I feel as if we were being hounded. As if
the whole world were in a conspiracy to interrupt us, or interfere with
us, or even to separate us. Sometimes it is accidental, but sometimes I
feel it is really done on purpose. We just are not allowed to be alone,
are we? And, when you come to think of it, not one single person has
tried to make things easier for us.

Even our friends give us advice against marrying, against concentrating
so much on each other. You can see them thinking, "It won't last." And
the nicest of them, the kindest--well, they feel sorry.

David, we'll show all of them, won't we?" He pushed away his plate. He
said with a sudden return of bitterness, "Perhaps your friends are
right. I've asked too much from you, and I give you too little in
return." He pushed aside the glass of water and felt its coldness spill
on his hand. I've nothing to give, he was thinking. Nothing.

And now, less than ever. Just words and waiting and talking and promises
and words.

"I have had a lot of decisions forced on me in the last five days.
Penny."

She kept silent while the waiter served the omelette. She thought of
Margaret. I expected this, she realized, but I hoped it wouldn't be so.

Margaret ... "Let's begin at the beginning," she said, more calmly than
she felt.

"I know very little of what actually has been happening, you see. I
guessed from your letters that there were difficulties."

David began totell her the brief story of this week. As she had hoped,
the telling of it did him good.

Now he was talking about Margaret ...  After the funeral there had been
a long discussion about her future. She had had her own proposals all
ready, of course. They were the same old ideas that he should share the
house in Cory's Walk with Margaret and Florence Rawson, and be
responsible mostly for its upkeep once he had a job.

Margaret needed only a few years, and by that time she (and Rawson too,
naturally) would have had some success, and David would not have to
worry about anything. And every one would live happily ever after.
Margaret was quite confident about that.

Then David had stated frankly that a much more concrete plan was needed,
something practical and not merely a vague kind of ambition.

This suggestion had not been well received. So David had left them and
gone back to Fentonsteven's flat, which had been lent h that neither
Margaret nor of this arrangement con vi good discussing anything had
gone to see Marg; Music.

He had told them exact They had been understam gar et was a good student,
were highly doubtful: she sides, success would not c years, and even
afer the f lished. That was a slow, p Margaret could complete tuition
and then be quali standing. That kind of we let yourself accept it: it w
the piano as well as finar did combine teaching witi artists in any
field who d problem.

"Yes," Penny said.

"And i " She doesn't want tote with compromises you new "I suppose you
didn't te " I could hardly do that would be a failure."

Penny shook her head i better now than later. So anyway."

"But, Penny, she wouldn this was only an excuse c her. She is a
complicated p And a complicating one as long as she has two har is so
helpless. Why doesn't David looked at her in quite so indignant.

"What ] ing except in music."

Penny did not reply to t "After all. Penny, you wing for book-keeping,
we Margaret's position and had to worry about your own future." "I
would," Penny said angrily. Then she restrained herself, and tried to
calm her voice.

"So what did Margaret decide? The year's tuition and expenses, or a job
to make her independent?"

"I wish you wouldn't think of it that way. Penny. It only makes the
whole thing more difficult for me." He was hurt too now. The fact that
he had asked himself through a sleepless night why Margaret had not the
guts to look for a job, why she had to be so helpless and abandoned in a
century when women could earn their own living, did not help to smooth
his temper.

"Well, that's that," Penny said. Her voice was abrupt. She stared at
David unbelievingly. She thought of several truthful things to say about
Margaret, but she stopped herself in time.

"Yes," David said gloomily, 'that's that. I can see no other way.

Penny. I've tried thinking up plans until I felt I was going stark
raving mad. It means," he paused, and his voice became cold and
emotionless, 'it means that I shall have to support Margaret for a year.
We have two relatives--Mother's brothers, both married, each with
families of their own.

They came to the funeral, of course, and they were kind enough to make
some gestures, but--well, one is a lawyer in Wales; the other is a
doctor in Yorkshire. They invited Margaret to stay with them until she
had decided what to do. Their wives looked quite relieved when she
refused. She doesn't want to leave London, you see." Penny said nothing.

"I went into the cost thoroughly to-day," David continued, in the same
cold voice.

"It will take, altogether, more than half of what I earn. After a year
she will be fully qualified and can teach. Anyway, she will be on her
own then." "I wonder," Penny said bitterly, and then wished she had not
said it.

For a moment they looked at each other across the table as if they were
strangers.

Then David looked down at the plate of salad, and laid aside his fork.

"I don't want coffee, either," Penny said, in a strangled voice. She
knew she was unreasonable, even petulant. But it seemed to her as if
David was treating his sister with more than necessary care. It paid to
be helpless.

Penny thought, with rising anger: if only women were sufficiently
helpless, then they could always rely on men being foolish enough to
rise to their defence.

Then, as she watched David pay the bill with that tight, tense
expression on his face which terrified her, her anger vanished. She rose
quickly, afraid that her emotions were going to make her break down in
this restrained and elegant restaurant. She hurried into the street, not
waiting for David, and began walking quickly away. Then she realized
that she had taken the wrong direction, and halted. She stood there,
with her face averted, not knowing what to do now, feeling what a fool
she must look and was.

"Penny," David said beside her. He took her arm, and held it firmly,
ignoring the slight movement she had made to draw away from him.

"Penny." He kissed her.

"I should have done that in the restaurant," he said.

"There isn't any problem that a kiss can't begin to solve."

She laughed happily through her tears. He gave her his handkerchief, and
smiled as he watched her blow her nose. Then he folded her arm through
his, and they retraced their steps.

"I'm sorry. Penny. I told you to-night that I've asked too much of you
and given you too little in return. You have every right to be bitter.
You would be better off if you had never met me."

"I wouldn't. And I'm not bitter. Not with you. Oh, David, how awful it
is to feel we are hurting each other. How easily a quarrel can start.
Just suddenly. Out of talk." "Yes," David said, with a smile to take the
edge off his words, 'that had all the beginnings of a good one, hadn't
it?"

She nodded.

"We hurt each other. And it was all so stupid, for neither of us
deserved to be hurt." She gripped his hand, as she wondered what she
would have done if he had not come after her, if he had not taken her
arm and kissed her. She suddenly reached up to kiss his cheek.

"I adore you," she said.

They halted at the corner of the street. The wind was shrewd, and the
passers-by looked at them curiously. David glanced at his watch.

"Shall we go into another restaurant and have some food?" he suggested
teasingly.

"Let's walk. I have some news for you too, David." She drew close to him
as they walked, ignoring both the wind and the passers-by.

"I

thought I wouldn't tell you this evening, because you were so depressed.

But it would explain a lot  ...  why I was so angry and stupid and all
the things I don't want to seem to you." She halted, suddenly aware of
the street which they had entered, crowded with Saturday-night holiday
makers.

"Where can we talk, David? How far away is George's flat?"

He looked at her, unable to conceal his amazement.

"Not too far," he said guardedly.

"Ten minutes by taxi." He made no move. He stood there looking at her,
watching her face, asking her no question, just standing there, saying
nothing, watching her.

"There's a taxicab rank, David," Penny said, pretending to be practical.

"So it is," he said, with an equally good pretence of surprise. He
smiled, raised one hand, and hailed the first cab, just as he had wanted
to do ever since he had seen the row of taxis some five minutes ago.
With the other hand he tightened his grip on Penny's arm.

The view from George's flat was one of roof-tops. When they entered it
from the tiny square of hall David switched on the light automatically,
and then wished he hadn't been so quick to cut out the magic of the
clear night pouring through the large double windows.

But Penny must have sensed the sudden nervousness which had attacked
him.

She walked into the room, looking round it with careful interest. He was
amazed at her calmness.

"Some day," she was saying, 'we'll have a room like this, and a window
like this. Only better than this, for it will be ours." And how happy we
shall be ...  Not for just one day here, one night there, but for
always.

People who were married did not know how lucky they were to have a home,
a place to be together, four walls around one life.

"Put out the light, David; we are blotting out the stars." She crossed
the room to the windows.

"I like roof-tops," she said. "When you have roof-tops you have the
sky." She turned almost instinctively to meet David's kiss half-way. He
caught her in his arms.

They stood there, straining against each other with the pain and
desperation of unfulfilled love. And then, suddenly, he released her,
dropping his arms as if they did not wish to touch her, moving his body
as if to step away from her. But their eyes did not leave each other.
Penny's hand rested on his shoulder, then it tightened, and her arms
slipped round him, drawing him back to her again.

"I love you, David," she said. To-night, as she looked up at him,
holding him, sharing the pain and anguish she found in his eyes, the
words had become a promise. Not a promise to be taken lightly. A promise
to be kept and repeated for ever.

"I love you," he answered, and in his words there was all the feeling of
a vow.

The room's darkness was broken by moonlight. Its pale white light
spilled in a pool on the floor before the window, overflowed gently into
the shadows, diluting their depths into ghost like transparence.

Penny stirred and then relaxed against David, feeling the strength and
peace of his body, the peace in her heart. His arm tightened round her
as if to reassure himself. He gently kissed her eyes and lips and
throat, and then his head rested against her breast. From this couch the
sky, with its sprinkled stars, was all that could be seen of the world
outside. There was only the sound of fading traffic coming up from the
street below: dim, distant, remote from this silver-shadowed room. Time
itself seemed to have stopped.

Chapter Twenty-nine.

VIEW BY MOONLIGHT.

When the curtains were drawn and the lamps switched on, and Penny had
combed her hair, they sat down together with lighted cigarettes.

Penny was in one armchair, David in the other, across from her, on the
opposite side of the hearth; because, as he said, he wanted to look at
her.

"How domestic this all is," Penny said, with some surprise, and glanced
round the room.

"I don't feel at all like an abandoned woman."

"As long as you only abandon yourself to me for the rest of your life I
shall't object," David answered. He smiled, and then saw that Penny was
watching him.

"Well?" he asked, "You too?"

"Yes, I'm so happy, David." He need only look at her shining eyes, at
the soft, eager smile on her lips, to find the proof of her words.

"You are so much more beautiful than I ever dreamed," he said suddenly
serious.

"Penny, why should you love a chap like me? What makes you?"

When she didn't answer that, but only watched him with that warm smile
on her lips, he went on, "You know. Penny, I've always been afraid that
I'll lose you. Even now ..

" His voice hesitated.

"Even now, at this moment, I suddenly realize what a nightmare this life
would be if, having known you, I lost you." "We shall't lose each
other," Penny said, 'for we shall't hurt each other.

That is the promise we made, isn't it?" Then she became serious,
thoughtful. Her voice was hesitant in its earnestness.

"I

realized to-night something that I hadn't realized before. I don't think
girls do realize it until they meet a man like you. No one tells us, you
see. All we are told about men is that we should distrust them because
they have the power to hurt us. Yet to-night I know that I have every
bit as much power to hurt you as you have to hurt me." She paused.

"It is a terrific responsibility, this being in love."

David rose and came over to her.

"If we remember that," he said, 'we won't ever lose each other." He took
her cigarette and stubbed it out in an ashtray. He sat down beside her
in the armchair, pulling her legs over his lap, sliding his arm around
her waist.

"It is a pity to waste the mercies," he said, and kissed her ear.

"Now, be co-operative. Look at your arm quite useless. Put it round my
neck.

That's the girl."

"But, David She tried to sit up and look businesslike." We have so much
to talk about, to decide."

"It seems to me as if we've made the only important decision in all our
life," he said, and kissed the curve of her neck.

"And look here.

Penny, when you're married to me you had better not interrupt me when
I'm making love. I'll beat you with the poker if you do."

Penelope laughed delightedly as if she enjoyed the idea, and let herself
relax on his lap.

"Still, David, we have a lot to discuss," she said mildly.

"In my handbag on that table is a letter from Father, for instance.

It came this morning. But first of all I must tell you about Mother's
visit, and that I am now hunting for a job. And a room of my own."

David looked at her in amazement, his interest now fully awakened.

Penny began her story.

At its end he was silent for some moments. Then he kissed the hand he
had been holding, and said quietly, "I'm sorry I lost my temper in the
restaurant. I'm sorry. Penny."

"But I hadn't told you, darling, so how could you know? You must have
thought I was hardly qualified to talk, with my parents providing a
nice, comfortable life for me. I should have told you at once, I
suppose, but you were so unhappy and gloomy."

"I was," he admitted. But no more. All the desperately unhappy thoughts
of these last days had vanished. Tonight death had once more gone back
into its proper proportion to life. We lived, not in fear of death, but
in spite of death.

"Everything seemed useless," he said.

"Even my work. It is behindhand, as you may guess. Yesterday I thought
that proved I could never manage it anyway. To-night'--he kissed her
hand again" I know I'll manage it. I'll go back to Oxford and work
harder than I've ever worked." He kissed her on her lips.

"Now I know what I've been working for," he added quietly.

"And we'll manage everything. We'll get married, sister or no sister."

He tightened his arms round her, as if by crushing her this way he could
hold her for ever.

If we had only my people to struggle against, or only your sister to
cope with, we could get married this summer. But my people and Margaret
together are going to be a difficult combination. You see, one
complicates the other.

"But I don't see, darling."

"Father's letter says quite frankly that I can't get legally married
without his consent. And I can't, David. Of course a lawyer would think
of that.

Now, if we could have shown him that we -were in love and that we had
three hundred pounds a year to live on--perhaps even more, but certainly
three hundred--he would probably have relented in the end. But I know
Father, and he will never allow me to get married on three pounds a
week, and that is what we shall have left after Margaret is taken care
of. And he wouldn't allow me 'to get married if I had to have a job in
order to add to our income. He doesn't believe in that. And if I pointed
out that a home might suffer just as much from a wife who spends so much
time on committees and concerts and bridge clubs and good works he
wouldn't listen. He would only be furious. And that's no way to win him
to our side." "Damn it all," David said angrily, 'if it is only money
they want." "Darling, darling," Penny said, and kissed him.

"Don't, please don't.

I agree with you. People are not logical. For instance. Mother thinks
George Fenton-Stevens is charming and would make a most suitable
son-in-law.

But look at this----" she waved her arm round the room.

"He has this flat." She glanced at David with a smile.

"And you probably know what I found in that cupboard beside the
bathroom. I was looking for a towel; I thought that cupboard was the
linen cupboard, and I opened it. A very nice black lace nightie; a pair
of slippers, all pink and fluffy." She laughed openly.

"So, supposing I had got engaged, formally of course, with the correct
ring and the correct announcements, to a man like George; supposing
after a very correct period of waiting I got married in white, with
engraved invitations and three hundred guests in the very best
church--well, I know Mother and every one would think it was all a most
moral arrangement. A most excellent marriage. Tenderhearted ladies would
weep with happiness for the bride.

Mother would be delighted. Yet at the same time she would never want her
daughter to have a second-hand husband. So what's logical in all that?"

David was still silent.

Penny said, "You see, darling, I've been thinking things out all week.
If we are serious about each other we must take ourselves seriously. Not
let ourselves be persuaded by anyone or anything. We are our own
conventions, our own morality. If we keep faith, then nothing we do is
wrong. Do you believe that?"

"If I didn't you would not be here now." He repeated slowly, "If we keep
faith  ..." That was the whole foundation. "Without it we can build
nothing. And marriage is a house you build, not a hotel room you can
rent and move into. It has to be well built, too. Not a ramshackle
affair." He raised her face gently towards him, and bent forward to give
her lips a long, slow kiss.

"Speaking as a man," he said at last, "I

don't know a better start on that foundation than the proof you gave me
to-night: you love me for nothing but myself That is what all men want,
and damned few get it." This time he kissed her with a violence that
startled her. And ther pleased her.

"And what do women want in love?" he asked. He watchec her face now.

It was one of her greatest charms that her thoughts should sometimes be
so unconsciously revealed b^ her expression.

"To be judged so wonderful in love that the man you lovt will never
think of anyone else," she said at last.

"You see darling, if you were to stop loving me it would be a dreadfu
confession of failure on my part. And women always like to think they
are a success. Oh, David," she tightened her arms about his neck, 'let's
make it a good house. A strong and wonderful house, a lovely house."
"Yes," David said.

"And to begin with, did I ever tell yot how many ways I love you, and
why, and how much?"

"Never sufficiently. But, darling, we haven't finished discussing
problems."

"Remember the poker!" David warned.

"They can be discussed--what is left of them--in letters. What are
letters for anyway, except to say all the things you hadn't time to sa)
when you were talking? And we have done enough talking tonight."

He rose suddenly, switched off the lamp on the table, and turned towards
the window to open the curtains again

"Quotations seem in order," he said, looking at the stars. '] should now
begin with Shakespeare and work down throughout the lesser poets. Or
should I--"

"What are letters for, anyway?" Penny asked, leaning her head back
against the chair.

"Besides, in letters we can always make the quotations word-perfect.

Darling, do you remembe) how I used to quote chunks and chunks of poetry
in my firs letters to you? I was trying to show an Oxford man that j
really might be educated, even if I did come from Scotland I'd remember
the first line or two quite fairly.

And then ; cheated: I copied out the other lines from the texts. Sound;
awful, doesn't it, but I was trying so hard ...  And, at least give me
the credit for having the texts, and for knowing where to look in them."

Scholars would say that was more important than having i parrot memory.

They are purists, you see. Just as you are, but in a different
direction." He came back to her.

"In a very different direction, thank God." He paused, looking down at
her.

The room's silence grew under the silvered light from the windows.

The traffic in the street had now ceased. In the deep quiet Penny looked
up at David. She was startled for a moment. There's so much about men
that I never knew, she thought in amazement; but if I am to be as
happily married at the age of fifty as I am now, then I must learn. The
age of fifty, viewed that way, seemed even attractive.

David had taken hold of her hands. He was trying to be so impersonal, so
thoughtful, that a wave of love flooded her heart and broke out into her
smile.

"Tired, darling?" he asked.

"Yes," she said truthfully. And then, her smile deepening, "No."

He laughed. His momentary nervousness had gone.

"Darling," he said, with a sudden deep emotion which held them together
in a tightening grip.

"I love you. I love you for ever."

Chapter Thirty.

OXFORD REALITY.

David's life at Oxford became austerely simple. He set himself to work
with an intensity that surprised even Chaundler, who found himself in
the strange position of advising a pupil to take things easy. David
would answer with a smile, "But it seems to agree with me, Walter."

And Chaundler would have to admit to himself that Bosworth seemed
happier than he had been last year, and that he was less worried and
more sure of himself than he had been last month.

"Besides," David said one day, after another fatherly lecture by
Chaundler on the wisdom of working with black coffee until four o'clock
in the morning, "I have to make quite sure of this job with Fairbairn,
you know." Walter Chaundler agreed, but he also suggested, in that
halting, quiet-voiced way of his, that David was practically sure of it
already Fairbairn had lunched at length on two occasions, and hac dined
once, with David; and during these meetings--a' Chaundler well knew,
although David was not supposed to realize it--David's brains had been
skilfully though subtle examined, and David's personality and
capabilities had beer carefully reviewed. So Chaundler contented himself
b) smiling, when David looked sceptical at such confidence and replied,
patting the books he held under his arm, "Well, this is one sure way of
making sure."

David had to make sure. There was the competition of Marain, for
instance.

Marain, until he had discovered that David was Fairbairn's possible
choice in his search for taleni in this year's crop of graduates, had
been thinking of a car eel combining writing with politics. Now he
suddenly decidec that a job with Fairbairn would be interesting and
useful, and entirely suitable for his own talents. His plan of campaigr
had been quite simple and direct. His uncle owned a smal but important
economic quarterly, which Fairbairn wouk have liked to buy and build up
into a monthly magazine. Anc although Marain would not work on the staff
of his uncle's journal, for he was always scornful of nepotism, he
somehow had no compunction about arranging a luncheon in towr where his
uncle played host to his nephew from Oxforc and Mr. Fairbairn.

David learned about this luncheon from Burns. David and the American had
come to know each other in an easy, casua kind of way, and Burns liked
David enough to make a spec ia visit to Mrs. Pillington's lodgings and
drop the news about Marain in the middle of a conversation about dos
Passes.

David looked sharply at Burns, and then said as casually a; possible,
"Well, of course, Marain's a good man. Clever Probably get a good First
if he will only allow himself to appear to work." He paused, trying to
disguise the worr^ which this piece of news had started churning, and
forcec himself to say, "He would probably be very good in the Fair bairn
job."

Burns looked at David with irritation.

"Well, I wouldn't lei myself be beaten with thoughts like that." Hell,
he thought I'd fight Marain every inch of the way. And no quarter Marain
has asked for it. Didn't Bosworth see that he had tolc him about this
straw in the wind not as a piece of Oxforc gossip, but as a warning?
Hell, didn't Bosworth know that he liked him? There was a real warmth in
Bosworth that attracted Burns; if there were more Bosworth's in Oxford
he wouldn't be so damned homesick for America. It was not the coldness
of the climate but the coldness of the people which depressed him over
here. You could never relax and stop worrying, either about the way you
spoke or the way you liked to dress or the way you liked to eat. You
could not be natural without feeling you had to apologize for it. You
couldn't even talk about being natural without some one quoting Oscar
Wilde at you in a most unnatural voice--The greatest affectation of all
is that of being perfectly natural." You were always trying to behave as
people expected you to behave. England expects .

Quite, as they would say. And, he reflected as he watched David's
impassive face, you might as well not waste your breath in warning an
Englishman. For warnings implied knowledge that he did not possess, and
that, of course, was unthinkable. And if you were fool enough to make
the gesture and waste your breath, what did you get? The glacier stopped
moving a couple of inches each year and froze dead in its tracks.

"Stop worrying," David said, with a smile.

"I shant."

Burns relaxed. He liked the look of that smile, the look in David's eyes
which had been allowed to appear for a moment before it was hidden
again.

"Fine," Burns said, and he meant it even if he had to revise a nicely
building theory. He didn't object. If these people only knew, he wanted
them to disprove the theories they aroused. He wanted to like them. The
trouble was that few of them cared whether they were liked or not. Their
attitude was that it was just too bad if foreigners didn't like them or
behave as they did; too bad for the foreigners, of course.

Burns walked slowly over to the window, and stood there looking morosely
down into the garden.

"What was it like here all through Easter? This place must have been a
graveyard then. Nothing but monuments left. Why didn't you take a week
off and come to Paris with me? It's nice in the spring."

"Nice at any time. Not this Easter for me, though. Perhaps next year
..." David glanced almost imperceptibly at Penny's photograph.

"I'm hoping to break the back of this work in May. Then, if all goes
well, I'll have a week-end in town."

And then, six weeks later. Finals. Thank God. His voice wa; casual.

There was no hint of the trouble that had hind ere his work so badly.

Anyway, it was all over now. Margare was living in a room near the
School of Music, and hac started classes there. By cutting his own
expenses to the ban minimum he had enough left of his scholarship money
(together with the Glendale Prize Essay money which he ha won in January
and the proceeds of the sale of the Cory' Walk furniture) to finance
Margaret and himself until h started earning a regular salary.

But how long was it since he had seen Penny? It felt lifc years, years
all the longer because the distance to Londol was so short: the next
train would take him there in one an a half hours. He had to keep
remembering Penny saying, ii that serious way of hers when she was
arguing out something; in her own mind, "The only intelligent thing is
that I shouk let you work in peace." Then she had sighed, tried to smile

"Oh, darling, how I hate doing the intelligent thing!" Anc then, as he
had said nothing, only looked gloomily at he: hands lying in his, she
had said quickly, "But we'll have that week-end in May as a kind of
prize to cheer us along." Yes it was the intelligent thing to do, but it
also was hard. mi sweet Penny, he thought now, as he looked openly at
her photograph, you keep tying me to you in every unexpectec way,
without even knowing that you have got me boun< hand and foot.

Burns was watching David. Time to move, he decided. Thi trouble was that
the people you wanted to know were all s( damned busy; and even if they
were doing nothing they hac always those private little worlds of their
own into whici they would pop and leave you. Perhaps that was what mad
them seem so well worth knowing. // you ever could get t( know them.

Burns crossed over to the door.

"We must get togethe: some time," he tried.

David said, "Yes." And then, with a frankness and warmtt that both
astonished and pleased the American, he went 01 quickly, "I'd like that
very much. This is a difficult year for me, you know. But after June is
over it will be different. I'l have time then to do the things I want to
do. I'll be ir London, and we'll get together. You are going to be herf
for another couple of years, aren't you?" __________ "If I don't freeze
to death." Burns grinned widely.

"I'd like to meet her too," he said, looking at the photograph.

"You're a lucky guy, Bosworth. It wouldn't be hard working for that." He
saluted Penny as he went out.

David's thoughts echoed Bums's last remarks. He settled, still smiling,
at his desk.

He looked at Penny's photograph, moved it so that she seemed to be
looking directly at him, and picked up his pencil. The sheet of paper
before him, fresh and white, invited clear headings, neat notes,
numbered paragraphs. He opened the Critique of Pure Reason, forced
himself to abandon romantic imaginings and concentrate on the unbroken
page of small print. He began making notes, and as he wrote he felt a
sense of pleasure. There was a lot of satisfaction in getting a job done
as well as possible.

Chapter Thirty-one.

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN.

Penny was writing, too, at that moment. She looked round with a touch of
pride as she noted the window measurements, and waited for Lillian
Marston to verify them. This was her room. A few weeks ago it had been
an empty, forlorn place on the top floor of one of the dingier houses in
Fitzroy Square. But it was a quiet room at the back of the house, and
its rent was a reasonable twelve shillings a week unfurnished, and it
possessed two tall, wide windows. The Square itself was useful for
quick, cheap shopping: Charlotte Street and the open-air markets lay
near by; that was something to be remembered when one's free hours were
regulated by a job.

Now it was hers, becoming less forlorn with each week. The shabby walls
and woodwork had been disguised by a coat of pearl-grey paint; coconut
matting in its natural shade made a modern-looking covering for the
uneven floorboards.

These had been the biggest expenses. The few pieces of furniture had
been bought cheaply in Tottenham Court Road and transformed, by a good
deal of sawing asunder, sandpapering, and careful painting in the same
soft shade of grey as the walls. And at last the important stage of
curtains and coverings had been reached, and Marston's long arm was now
obligingly measuring the height of the windows.

"If I could find a design in green and white large enough to balance
that size of window," Penny said, 'then the place would really begin to
look decent. Sort of formalized bamboo-trees in green," she added,
eyeing the coconut matting, 'rather in the way the Douanier would have
painted them."

"You must like your new job," Marston said, with unconcealed amusement.

"You are learning the jargon quite naturally. What is it like being an
interior decorator?"

"I've no idea ...  I only work in an interior decorator's office."

"I make this window almost two yards and one foot, again. Two yards and
ten inches to be precise. From the top down to the window-sill, that is.

Doesn't Bunny let you try out any of your ideas? I know he is the boss,
and a prima donna too, but still--he didn't just engage you as a
book-keeper, did he?" Marston sat down on the topmost step of the
ladder, and lighted a cigarette.

"No, but I'm still very much in the apprentice stage. I'm learning a
lot, too. It really is quite an experience to see Bunny swing into form
with his prize customers. They begin by retreating to the safe position
of brown, and then they end by agreeing that off-white is the only
possible setting.

Although why people insist on off-white for a room in town, unless they
are willing to keep windows tightly shut and die of suffocation, is
something I haven't quite solved."

"But it keeps decorators in business. If they weren't then you wouldn't
have this room, and you wouldn't be able to write home saying how
wonderful everything is. You know, Lorrimer, I think your family must be
quite frantic."

"Why?" Penny was finishing her calculations.

"From the floor to the window-sill is two feet. I'll need double width.

That makes  ... Good Lord, Marston." She held out the notebook with her
calculations.

"Put your little sums away, darling, and answer the nice lady."

"But they can't be frantic. I am not sleeping on the Embankment, and I
did find a job. Thanks to you, Lillian, and your friend Bunny Eastman.
Really, you must have pestered him over that telephone until he had no
breath left to

"No." I still feel guilty when I think of the jobs I couldn't find for
myself, and of all the other girls still searching the newspaper columns
each morning."

"Don't be so damned Scotch. You don't need to spoil the job by having
guilt.

I knew Bunny needed some one with a few brains attached. And he isn't a
willing martyr to friendship. He can be as hard as nails, even if his
hair waves and his voice curls. He is quite anassthetized to all women,
so he is completely businesslike and unsentimental. In one way," Marston
concluded thoughtfully, 'that's a Good Thing."

"Definitely," Penny agreed, with a smile.

"But you did make things easier for me, Lillian." "Nonsense," Marston
said brusquely. She was always embarrassed by thanks.

"You still haven't given the proper answer to my question."

"About my people? But they can't possibly be worried about me. I'm
happy.

I never felt better in my life."

"Exactly. You should be miserable, you should hate all this worry and
effort, you should be lonely and homesick. And instead you probably
write letters filled with the joy of living. Do they write much to you?"
"My sister writes," Penny said shortly. Her face hardened for a moment.

"She is bursting with curiosity."

"And with disapproval. She'll never forgive you for doing what she had
not the courage to do. Here, Lorrimer, steady this brute while I climb
down.

I'm getting cramp up in this crow's-nest."

Penny held the stepladder, looked at the windows reflectively, and said,
"If I could find fifty-four-inch material and allowed----"

" Lorrimer! I love you dearly. But I have had quite enough work for one
evening. Besides, you have probably decided everything already in your
own little head, and I'd only give you advice you did not really need."

"Well  ..." Penny said, and then smiled. She couldn't deny that. She
looked round the room again, seeing it as it would be when everything
was in place. She would place the large plain table in front of the
windows, and she would work there, so that the excellent top-floor light
would come in left ward Against the wall which lay directly opposite to
the windows and work-table there was the bed, low, without head-boards,
waiting for a simply tailored cover to make it look quite impersonal. In
the centre of the third wall there was a small fireplace, with a
bookcase and an armchair later, with luck, there would be another),
which she would also cover once she found time and the right curtain
material. The fourth wall was so broken by doors--one entrance, two cup-
boards--that all one could do with it was to put a low sideboard,
painted grey, in the one decent-sized panel of space.

Not even Marston had guessed that the sideboard was the base of a
one-time kitchen dresser, whose top shelves, sawn off, now stood near
the window wall to hold Penny's folios of drawings and the large books
on art which never fitted into normal bookshelves.

"Well  ..." Marston echoed. She walked round the room.

"I shouldn't say it was exactly cluttered with furniture." "Of course,
it isn't finished yet," Penny said.

"Of course." People were always funny about their houses and gardens:
this was never the moment to see either of them--if only you had come
next week the rugs would have been down or the petunias would have
really been blooming. Nothing ever was finished or completely perfect to
the owner.

"I think it is all simply marvelous. But I'm afraid that when I live
alone I'll just take a furnished room in a hotel." "Expensive," Penny
said.

Marston looked mildly surprised.

"Oh, a cheap hotel, darling."

"Horrid."

"Don't be so realistic. Now, I suppose you'd like me to admire all the
other improvements you have been making round here. Shall I make a tour
of inspection of the kitchen, scullery, and other offices?"

Marston did not wait for an answer, but strolled out into the narrow
landing.

In an alcove there was a sink, a small gas oven, and some narrow
shelves.

Marston said, "H'm!" as she looked at the well-equipped shelves.

"Domestic creature at heart, aren't you?"

"Thanks to Woolworth's," Penny said.

"Now let me make some tea to show how well I can cook."

"And meanwhile I'll visit the other offices."

When she came back she said, "Well, the abominable bathroom hasn't
grown, but it looks altogether different. Don't make things too nice,
Lorrimer, or you'll have the rent raised." She looked at Penny with
concealed surprise as she carried the tea-tray into the room.

"Perhaps you did find your right career after all, even if you got into
it by accident."

Penny was pleased by Marston's praise. Marston had been first alarmed
and then gloomy when she had seen this flat before Penny had actually
decided to take it.

"My trouble is," Marston went on, 'that I see things as they are and not
as they could be. I expect the next time I come to see you I'll be
amazed by curtains and colours and things."

"Next time I am going to ask Bunny Eastman to come along with you."

Marston sipped her tea thoughtfully.

"That might be a good idea." She waited for the explanation, but Penny
went on with careful unconcern: "First, this room has to be ready. I
have been doing it gradually.

Partly because of lack of time, but mostly because of money. I got Bunny
to pay my salary by the week: it makes things easier, to start with. I
also used the remainder of my last quarter's dress allowance from my
people.

Later I can start gathering some money to pay it back. I hated using it.
It would have been such a grand gesture to hand it back intact. But I
needed it, and you can't afford grand gestures when you are desperate.
False pride is much too expensive, really."

"I've been ill-mannered enough to wonder how much all this has cost."

"Fourteen pounds and six shillings so far. I am allowing myself
twenty-five pounds altogether. Which brings me to an idea I have been
developing in the last two weeks. Have another cup of tea and I'll tell
you about it."

"No sugar, this time. And no cake either, thank you. A horrible thing
happened yesterday. I put on my black skirt, and the waist-band would
scarcely fasten. It is all these dinners with Chris." Marston lit a
cigarette, watched Penny pour out tea, and then said unexpectedly, "What
amazes me most is the way you know exactly what you want. All these
ideas and things  ...  What is this one?"

Penny described it in detail, and over a third cup of tea they discussed
it.

"Yes," Marston said, 'it is good. But you'll never get Bunny to listen
to it. His name is expensive, and he'd rather die than lose that
reputation.

You'll see."

"He can start a new firm with a new name altogether to develop this
idea. He won't lose by it financially. That might sound attractive to
him."

Marston smiled.

"You know him quite well already."

"And that is why some day you will bring him here for a glass of sherry.
I shall't mention my idea at all to him at first. I'll let him look
round.

Can't you see him, sitting in that armchair (which will look quite
different with its cover in just the right shade to emphasize or
contrast with the curtains), glancing round him while he pretends to
notice nothing? If he says he likes it" --I do like this; I really do. I
adore it." (Penny gave a good high-pitched imitation, and leaped up to
stride about the room in the way Marston had seen the blond, beautiful
Eastman do when his interest was excited.) " Most amusing. Definitely
amusing"--then I shall start talking about the room. I'll give him the
cost, analysed, if he demands it. He will, if he is interested. And then
I'll produce my idea about the new firm.

We could give it a ham name like Moderate Modern. Oh  ...  isn't that
awful? Still, something like that. That will catch the fancy of people
who have to furnish a house for less than Mrs. Whosit pays for her
curtains or fireplaces alone. No one likes to think they are furnishing
cheaply.

"Moderate" is much more soothing, isn't it? But we wouldn't be bogus,
for anyone who did come to us would have a pleasant house for their
money. And they'd be all the happier for it, too. There is nothing more
dismal than dull, stereotyped rooms: it makes people into a pattern of
dimness. The trouble is that unless you have lashings of money to spend
on a house, it is almost impossible to have an exciting one. It's silly.
Charm and taste don't--that is, they shouldn't--depend on money. In
fact, money often kills them. Funny, isn't it, how poverty or wealth can
both kill taste? One because it crushes people--you reach the stage when
a loaf of bread on the table is more important than a vase of flowers on
the window-sill. And the other because it takes away the need for any
personal effort--you can hire people, can't you?" "Yes, my sweet,"
Marston said, with a smile.

"But Bunny isn't given to philanthropy. And he would have to raise your
salary. He couldn't go on paying you that miserable three pounds a week.

He's an astute blighter really: he only pays you so little because he
knows that jobs are so scarce."

"Well, even if he did have to pay me more he wouldn't lose money. The
idea would make some profit; I know it would. For there are far more
people with little money to spend than there are with lots of money."

"But it all means a lot of work and effort for a comparatively small
profit.

Can you imagine Bunny's genius thriving on anything less than a guinea a
yard? Can you imagine him giving up any time or thought to selecting
good-looking designs and textures and colours for half a crown a yard,
as you suggest? See, darling?"

"Yes. But I could do it. I'd love it. It would be fun beating the ramp
on prices, and helping others to do it. I wouldn't decorate rooms, of
course, so Bunny need not fear that I'd steal any of his thunder. I'd
choose fabrics and furniture that looked good, and weren't expensive,
and have them all there for the customers to select as they pleased. In
any case, people ought to choose their own rooms, just as they choose
their own clothes."

"That's heresy, if not blasphemy. Don't ever say that to Bunny or he
will blow up into fragments. The only good taste is his taste. Or didn't
you know?" Marston asked, with mock gravity.

"Well, I suppose we all feel that way."

"You are much too loyal ever to succeed in the interior decorating
business.

Or any business. What are bosses for except to sneer at?

One good sneer a day keeps the doctor away." Lillian Marston laughed.

Strange, she was thinking, how I always find being with Lorrimer such an
easy way to spend an afternoon. Here I came up, all full of problems
about Chris, and I've only mentioned him in asides, as if everything
were going swimmingly with us. Of course, it was really no good asking
Lorrimer for advice: people who were happily in love always thought life
was so simple and why aren't you like me--look, it's easy. Not so damned
easy. Not by a long chalk.

"And what if Bunny doesn't like this room?" Marston said suddenly.

"I have thought of that too. If he looks round, and then concentrates on
his sherry--and at the end says, "It is too divine, darling. Now, I must
really run" --I shall say goodbye with a sweet smile. And I'll say
nothing at all about my idea."

"But you'll go on thinking about it."

"Of course. It is sound, isn't it? And I'd probably start going cuckoo
if I had only cl yard to deal with in my job. Bunny."

She paused, hesitated, then rose to get a large foldi table.

"Here is something else she said, in a much too offhanc to show you, I'm
afraid, as y time  ...  They are designs for furniture and fabrics and
colou Marston raised an eyebrow folder.

"I'd like this one," she and pleasure. She held up the ( angles.

"Yes," she added, "I do Lorrimer. But where do I find room ready for all
these pleasa are not built like that, my swei fully, almost pityingly.

"It woulc " But supposing people who v alter one, were to choose the
from these drawings? Then tl architect and say, "Fit these them with
walls."

"And the architect would cl " If he's a good architect he i a customer
who wanted an int& "I've only one more touch o: even good ones, don't
always w " We don't know that until w' then what is needed are bette] of
them."

Marston smiled and rose, s black suit into its neat line, to the correct
position on fc imagined extra inch in disapi beginning to sound serious.
h( afraid. I have to dress. Chris aunt has just died and left h Isn't it
surprising what the old come along? There will be lots

"Well," Penny began, "I I know. I The usual mixtu always gave her voice
a slight trying to refuse an invitation. Marston never failed to be
amused by this. Why worry about not doing what you didn't want to do,
anyway?

Really, Lorrimer could be so quaint at times.

"I'll make myself presentable," Marston said.

"Where's that hidden boudoir of yours?" She opened the wrong cupboard
door, and then the right one.

"How's your David?" she asked unexpectedly, as she finished powdering.
She watched Penny's face light up with sudden interest.

"He's well. I had a letter this morning." And one yesterday and one the
day before. Wonderful letters ...  Wasn't Marston ever going to leave.

Penny wondered.

"Don't you ever run out of things to say to each other?" Marston asked
teasingly.

"I suppose you are going to spend the whole evening quite happily
writing a letter to him. Most touching." Her attitude had always been
one of tolerant amusement combined with unexpressed liking for these
two. At least, it had begun that way. But now, although she kept up the
pretence of amusement, she was no longer so very amused.

Penny coloured slightly and smiled.

"It can be fun writing letters," she said.

"Not my cup of tea." There was the slight edge of irritation in her
light voice.

"How is Chris?" Penny asked quietly, suddenly realizing she had been
meant to ask about him from the start of this visit.

Marston shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, he's all right." She stubbed out her cigarette half finished, and
began pulling on her gloves with exaggerated care.

Penny looked at her friend in dismay.

"I think Chris is charming."

"He can also be rather tiresome."

Penny said nothing, but she was thinking that Marston would not always
be twenty-two, or look like Garbo.

"He has become so possessive recently. All this money from his aunt
makes him dream of a nice place in the country and settling down. Can
you imagine it? He is in such deadly earnest nowadays. To tell you the
truth, he is becoming rather a bore."

Penny began to speak, and then changed her mind.

"Now, what was that?" Marston said, her good humour returning.

"Don't you ever want to be married? You always seemed to have such a lot
of fun with Chris."

Marston managed to produce a laugh.

"How embarrassing we are becoming, like Buchmanites or something. What a
quaint idea, Lorrimer. Of course every one wants to be married. Some
day.

But not yet. Unless, of course, you have the luck to meet some one like
your David, and then I suppose you grab him while you can."

"I didn't grab him." At least, not that way.

"Don't lose your hair over it, darling. After all, you are damned lucky.

And you know it, old girl."

"I know it. But I never thought you did, Lillian. You always think I'm
rather a fool about it all."

"I must admit that you could have a lot more fun than you do have.

What harm is in that?"

"I probably wouldn't have David for very long."

"Nonsense, darling. You'd always have him. One sees that kind of man
every now and again. It is easy to live with him: one has only to look
at his wife to see that."

"And one always thinks how lucky she is."

Lillian Marston looked quickly at Penny's expressionless face. Was she
being sarcastic? How odd, for Lorrimer.

"Isn't she?" Marston asked sharply.

"Of course. And perhaps he is lucky too, although it may take other men
to see that. But there is something more than luck attached. Oh, yes, I
agree, the first meeting is a matter of pure luck. But after that it is
something else."

"Is it? Darling, I'm boring you. We are talking in circles.

Besides----" She glanced at the wrist-watch which Ronald had given her
last year. She still wore it, not from any sentimental reason, although
Chris never quite seemed to believe that, but because it was such a
pleasure to look at its charming design.

"Oh, I'm late ...  I must fly." Her voice returned to its naturally
light tone, and she gave Penny one of her slow, controlled smiles.

"Don't worry about me, darling. Life is really very gay and amusing--if
you don't think about it. Don't forget to ask me to that party for
Bunny. I'd adore watching his concealed emotions. But don't make this
place too attractive, or he will think you must be overpaid."

Penny was smiling again.

"Oh, he isn't such a monster as that, Lillian."

"Darling, he is the kind of man who calculates whether his friends are
worth a five- or a ten-shilling dinner before he asks them out."

Marston picked up her handbag, took one last look at herself in the
mirror, and said,

"Now don't work too hard. After all, no room is worth too much effort.
And it will look marvelous, I'm sure, once you get the smell of
turpentine out of it. What does David think of all this?"

"He hasn't seen it yet. He is coming here some time in May." "You know,"
Lillian Marston said, half teasingly, half accusingly, "I'd like to meet
him properly some time."

"Of course you will," Penny said conventionally, but she must have also
shown some embarrassment--she remembered David's point-blank refusal to
meet any of her friends meanwhile: I've little enough time with you to
waste it on other people--for Marston jumped to the obvious but wrong
conclusion.

"Oh, don't worry, Lorrimer," she said, with amusement. "You know he will
be perfectly safe. I have my rules, you know. I never poach on my
friends' preserves That was what was known as a good exit line. Penny
thought, as the door closed and Lillian's footsteps began their promised
flying: there was no answer one could think up in time. But as Penny
walked over to her table and cleared a space for writing-paper and
elbow-room she was thinking of several replies.

"I suppose David wouldn't be safe if she hadn't her little rules? I
suppose he would fall for her if she decided to raise an eyebrow? Of all
the----" Her sense of humour began to reassert itself. She was even
smiling broadly as she dated her letter. And then she began to laugh.
The only thing that spoiled this joke was the fact that she couldn't
tell it to David somehow.

She stopped laughing then.

She rose and walked restlessly about the room. The open cupboard door
reminded her to close it, but she paused there for a minute to look at
her reflection in its mirror. What am I, who am I, that a man should
love me for ever? Why should I expect such happiness, so much more than
many girls ever get? Am I as vain and selfish in my way as Lillian
Marston is in hers? She stared at the reflection facing her so
seriously. Her eyes were tired with worry and too little sleep.

Her hair was untidy; she found a comb and tried to make it look better,
but to-night it wouldn't go the way she wanted it.

"You look a fright," she told herself cruelly. Why, she thought again,
should I expect so much from life? She closed the door quickly and
walked back to the table. She brushed the sudden tears from her eyes
with the back of her hand. Stupid, she accused herself; you are
overtired.

After a space, when she could start thinking again, she knew the real
reason.

It was this separation. If she could see David she wouldn't have these
attacks of gloom. If she could hear his voice she would be confident
again.

She picked up his letter and began reading it. She could feel the sudden
attack of doubt and depression lifting from her heart.

"I am hearing his voice," she told herself. She could even hear the
urgency of his words. Keep writing me. Penny. Tell me you love me over
and over again. Tell me in fifty different ways. Keep telling me. He too
was never sure: he too wanted reassurance.

She remembered their last night together. She had awakened at dawn to
feel his arm round her waist, to find him raised on one elbow, leaning
over her, looking down at her, watching her as he had drawn her out of
sleep. He had not moved, had kept looking at her, searching her eyes
with his. At last he had said quite simply, "Why?

Why, Penny?" She had smiled, stirring happily in his arms, not knowing
what to say. There were a hundred reasons, big and little.

Where could she begin? Then she had put her arms round him and drawn him
down to be kissed.

"Because I love you," she had said, and kissed him again.

When we are together, she thought, a look or a touch is all that is
needed to reassure us. But when we are apart we need all the courage
that only words can bring. He feels that too. And realizing that, she
was happier again: if they were both in need of reassuring, then that
was good. That way they would never forget the miracle of being loved.

She began to write. There was a soft, warm smile on her lips as the
words flowed on smoothly. This was her first real love-letter in the
true sense of the word. It had taken a long time to find courage enough
for it, she thought. How afraid we all were, and out of fear how we held
back what should be given without asking. And as she wrote it seemed as
if her thoughts filled the room with the warmth of memories recalled,
with the excitement of future hopes. Its loneliness had vanished.

Chapter Thirty-two.

HOUSEWARMING.

By May full summer had come that year. It astounded and delighted
foreign visitors and added another topic of conversation to English
dinner-tables. A poor view was taken of the drought--in the Cotswolds
cottagers were fetching water by the bucket from far-off wells--and of
this appalling heat- wave, with the temperature soaring around
seventy-six degrees. (People who tried to introduce a description of
Singapore or of New York in summer were politely listened to, but
equally silently disbelieved. ) Penny was much too occupied to worry
about the weather, and enjoyed the luxury of open windows and the view
of green leaves, already at midsummer growth, on the back-gardens'
trees. She had become accustomed to the breathless quality of London
air. She would probably shiver now in Edinburgh's bracing climate.

Strange how we adapt ourselves quickly, she thought. Last May my whole
life was cent red round Edinburgh. Now it is here. And things which I
hadn't even dreamed of then are opening up before me. She thought of her
first ambitions, and found she was smiling at herself.

It was such an obvious reaction to want to live on the Continent in
romantic places and become a great painter. Instead there was that
folder growing richer with designs, more carefully worked over than when
Marston had seen them. And there was this room, at last completed and
ready for her visitors this week (Lillian Marston and Bunny were to be
the first--they were coming this afternoon), which had given her a very
practical lesson in her new career. For now it was more than a job of
work which gave her economic freedom; now it was the beginning of a
career. Bunny Eastman would decide that to-day. Or would he? If he
didn't like her ideas, then some one else might some day.

Penny, arranging sherry glasses and decanter on the birch tray, paused
to admire the natural grain of the wood and its silver blond colouring.

She was laughing at herself again: last May she would never have had the
thought that an idea can go on to live after others reject it. Last May
she would have accepted Bunny's refusal or his scorn. Now she would
question it and act on the answer she would find. Still, she was
nervous: rejections were always depressing, even if you didn't accept
them as the final verdicts.

She tried the tray in two different places, decided it looked best in a
third. She arranged the deep yellow roses on the mantelpiece for the
fourth time. She gave a last practical look around the room. I love it,
she thought happily. She danced across the room, sang five high notes of
no song in particular, and ended with a full circle swing on one foot.
Happy, happy, Penelope, she thought, and danced for an imaginary David.
He is coming on Friday, on Friday, she sang.

And then she heard footsteps on the stairs. She stood breathless,
collecting her delightfully scattered wits, and then she dashed to the
cupboard, catching a glimpse of her face in the mirror before she closed
its door once more. Yes, it is he who brings the stars to your eyes, she
thought.

When Marston knocked and called a casually cheerful greeting Penny was
seemingly calm again. She opened the door, concealing, with some
difficulty, her pride in ownership. Even Marston, although she had
hardly expected Penny to be placarded with

"All My Own Work," was surprised at the perfect offhand welcome. And
then, as she entered the room somewhat dubiously with Ernest Boniface
Eastman, she was still more surprised.

"Well!" she said, and both eyebrows went up.

She had taken care to tell Bunny before they reached Fitzroy Square that
really Lorrimer must have been quite mad to choose such an impossible
flat, and she had described it accurately as she had first seen it. Her
eyes met Penny's, and there was an amused glint in them.

If the strategy was good, the tactics were superb. Penny talked of
everything and anything except the room. Bunny, his long legs curled
round each other, his thin, greyhound body slouching half sideways in
the armchair--now covered in dark green linen to pick up the leaf colour
in the curtains --rested one hand against a slightly drooping head and
balanced a glass of surprisingly good sherry in the other.

This was his favourite attitude when he was charmed--'the wilting-rose
position' Penny called it. Suddenly, as he finished his fourth glass of
Bristol Cream, he could bear this no longer. He leaped up. He leaned an
elbow on the mantelpiece, and stood there for a moment. No detail in the
room escaped him. Probably cost next to nothing, probably no more than a
hundred quid all told. Still, most people would not guess that: it took
the professional eye to add up the cost.

"I do like this; I really do," he began.

Marston bent her head to search for matches in her handbag. Now we're
off, she thought. She lit a cigarette, and looked at Penny with
increasing respect. If only she doesn't become too serious, Marston
hoped. But Penny was suiting herself admirably to Bunny's tempo.

"Moderate Modern' was explained, lightly, gaily, practically, and she
even avoided arousing Bunny's petulance. But he was, as Marston had
predicted, extremely wary.

"Amusing," he was saying, 'yes, an amusing idea. But, my dear, I simply
haven't the time. Or the energy. Life is crushing enough as it is.
Imagine sweating over designs and colours at five shillings a yard, when
the amount of creative energy put into them should bring
eighteen-and-six at least."

Penny looked at her curtains pointedly.

"One-and-nine- pence a yard," she admitted frankly, and then smiled with
all her charm.

"But you wouldn't be spending your energy on designs for this idea. That
would be a shocking waste of your time." She cleared her throat, and
kept her eyes determinedly turned away from Marston.

"No, Bunny, the good cheap materials are all there, ready for sale, just
waiting to be picked out from the bad cheap materials. All one has to do
is to think of using them differently. These curtains of mine are made
of material which was sold for dresses, which would have been hideous;
but it is all right for curtains. Of course, the whole room was done on
practically nothing. You would see that at once."

Bunny acknowledged that fact modestly.

"Thirty-one pounds," Penny said, 'and that includes pots and pans and
things.

Thirty-one pounds two-and nine pence to be exactly exact."

Bunny's usual quick phrase was somewhat slow in coming. Then he said,
with a bright smile, "Yes, that was more or less what I guessed." He
looked round the room once more. "Amusing, really."

The visit ended with Bunny still resisting slightly, but obviously
attracted to the idea. It would take three or four weeks before Penny
would learn whether it had been successfully presented to him or not.
And then, if he did accept the idea and financed a new branch of his
firm, with quite a new name, to cater for people who had more taste than
excess money. Penny would probably have to fight in her own way to keep
the idea as she had imagined it.

"So far so good," said Lillian Marston, after Bunny had left with
protestations of regret at having to simply tear himself away.

"He never makes a song and dance out of his goodbyes unless he feels
rather good about something. I think you hooked him, sinker and all.

But why didn't you show him the folder?"

Penny, busy clearing the overflowing ashtrays, straightening the
cushions where Bunny had slumped all over them, poured another glass of
sherry for Marston.

"Here, you deserve this," she said, bringing over the glass to Marston.

"The folder-- frankly, I thought he had as much as he could swallow at
one time."

Marston regarded her curiously.

"You know, you get on surprisingly well with him. Do you really like
him?"

"As much as he likes me. Which is limited, of course, for he is a
limited kind of man. I suppose we do get on quite well together. You
see, he isn't afraid of me."

"Is he afraid of me?" Marston asked.

"Terribly," Penny said, with a wide smile.

"You make me sound like a predatory female," Marston said lightly, and
rose to go. She thought she was changing the subject when she asked,
"When is your David coming to see all this?" She waved a graceful hand
around the room.

"This week-end," Penny said, and then regretted her frankness for no
thinkable reason at all.

"My grandfather is arriving to-morrow," she added quickly.

"And Bunny has given me the afternoon off. Isn't that marvelous?"
"Amazing," Marston said.

"And your grandfather is coming all the way from his island?"

"Well, he is really going to visit Oxford. He and Walter Chaundler are
thinking of collaborating on another book, you know. But, of course, he
is spending a day or two in London to see me."

"An emissary from the family? An advance scout, as it " Quite possibly."

Marston caught some of the anxiety which lay behind the brief answer.

"Oh ...  Well, he is bound to see that you are happy here." Happy.

There was that word again, blast it. It had slipped out as usual. She
went on quickly, concentrating on the room, "Now I begin to see how you
must have hated Baker House. I really wouldn't mind having a place like
this myself. Bunny was very acute when he said that you had given it
some of your charm."

She was relieved to see Penny's smile come back. She glanced at her
watch.

"Late again," she said cheerfully.

"I am meeting Chris for dinner." And then, with comic emphasis on dark
omen, "We are going to Have It Out tonight."

But later, in the street, she felt a touch of irritation. Why did she
always have to bring in the word "happy" when she was talking to
Penelope Lorrimer?

Of course she didn't want a room like that, or a life like that. Then
why say it? Poor old Penny, she thought, and felt better. Poor old
Penny, she had to be cheered up some way: she had undertaken far too
much. My role, Lillian Marston thought, will become more and more
depressing: Lord, how awful to have condemned myself to a future of
acting the sympathetic aunt.

God, I couldn't bear it. When David and Penny break up I'll disappear on
a holiday to the Continent or something. I couldn't bear it.

Chapter Thirty-three.

HAMPTON COURT REVISITED.

The first greeting was affectionate, but restrained. They both said,
much too politely, how well each was looking, and how were they? Dr.
MacLntyre then walked about the room, pretending he was stiff after so
much sitting in a train. Without any comment he noticed Penelope's
drawing-board with a half-finished design tacked to it, her bookcase
with its well- filled shelves, the reproductions of Utrillo and Rousseau
on the walls, and David's photograph on the table beside her work. She
was nervous, he realized, as he turned away from the photograph, and
that too depressed him. He did not like London, he hated nowadays the
fuss of travelling, and he had left his last two chapters in very bad
shape on his desk in the study as Inchnamurren.

For weeks now his daughter's worried letters had invaded the peace of
his island. And, if only to stop their dirge, he had visited Edinburgh.
There, in spite of a lot of discussion (once Moira and Betty were out of
the room), he was still no nearer to understanding the problem of his
favourite granddaughter. T shall go and see Penelope," he told Mary and
her husband finally.

"And that is what you both ought to have done weeks ago."

But now, watching his granddaughter, he suddenly realized why Mary had
been so worried over her. It was not, as he had been told in Edinburgh
so repeatedly, that Penelope needed advice and help, that she was living
in great unhappiness, carefully disguised in her letters out of pride
and pigheadedness. But, rather, it was only that Mary had begun to
realize that Penelope was now in no need of advice or help, that the
child-parent relationship had been broken, and would never be resumed.
He was beginning to wish he had never attempted the journey at all. I am
a curious interferer, he thought: that is how I must seem, and that is
how I feel.

He sat down in the green armchair and elbowed a yellow cushion out of
his way.

"H'm," he said, in some surprise, 'comfortable!" That was his only
remark about the room.

Penelope sat down on the floor, as she always used to do when she came
to see him in his study. There she was, wearing a neat black suit
instead of a sweater and skirt, looking thinner, paler, but somehow
prettier. Pretty?

Stupid word. She was reaching beauty. And no woman ever looked beautiful
unless she had some inner happiness. Beauty was not a surface quality.
He studied her covertly. She was not so anxious now. There was even a
hint of amusement in the deep blue eyes watching him so steadily. As if
they were saying, "This is a joke which you and I are sharing, without
even needing to tell it." The little monkey, he thought with affection
anrl pride, and smiled openly.

"Well," he said, looked round the pleasant room, looked back at Penny,
and then drew his pipe out of his pocket and stretched the legs
comfortably.

Penny relaxed too.

"This is wonderful," she said, her eyes sparkling with delight. "How
glad I am to see you!" She rose, hugged him, and then sat down once more
in front of him, her legs sideways, her right arm supporting the weight
of her body, her left hand clasping her ankles. She wore a plain signet
ring on its third finger. She began to talk, answering his questions,
plunging with all her old enthusiasm and frankness into the details of
her new life--her work, her friends, her interests, what she had seen
and done since she came to London, the Slade, Baker House, this room,
the new ideas which her job had stimulated. Her grandfather listened
critically, but he was surprised in spite of himself. He was glad now
that he had made this journey to London.

She had not thrown away her chances, as Mary and Charles insisted. She
was developing new ones, through new influences, that was all.

He purposely kept off the subject of David. It was embarrassing, anyway,
to think that the girl, still so much the Penny he had known at
Inchnamurren, had become a woman. It is always a shock to older people,
even to the most sympathetic, to realize that the children they have
loved are now capable of a quite different kind of love.

But the subject of David did crop up, and afterwards Dr. MacLntyre was
inclined to consider it had been no accident.

Penny had been talking about painting, and about the present dominance
of the French schools. She was beginning to believe that to repeat their
techniques, to try to paint in their manner, might produce an adept
canvas, but at best it was only being an echo.

"If there is anything of real value in a painter," she was saying, 'he
has got to find his own expression. He should learn from others, but he
shouldn't become an echo, or a part of a fashion. That is true of poetry
too.

Perhaps that is what is wrong with so many young poets today. They must
be in the fashion, even if it kills their own natural inspiration. It is
the thing to-day to write uglily, they seem to persuade themselves. So
let us have no more beauty. That would date us: we'd be called Georgians
or something equally damning. As if beauty could ever be outdated."
"Poets reflect the times," her grandfather said. The world is ugly and
harsh to-day." He was listening with concealed amusement, a touch of
pride, and much pleasure. Where had she picked up that idea, he
wondered.

"Anyone can see that. We need the poets to show us the beauty that still
exists, however hidden. That's what poets are for ..."

She looked, and looked naturally enough as her grandfather had to admit,
at the top row of the bookcase beside the armchair.

I see you've been collecting some poetry there," he said, as his glance
followed hers.

"Isn't that something new for you?"

His hand went out automatically, and he picked up a volume, and let the
pages ripple slowly through his fingers. He halted at the group of poems
called Michael Robartes and the Dancer. Yes, he was thinking, let a poet
clothe his conceptions with new images of striking beauty. Let him give
richness and life to his ideas, phrased in such sound that those of us
who listen will remember their music.

Penny had said. That's -what poets are for ...  Yes, that is what poets
are for.

His eyes paused at The Second Coming, and he turned over no more pages,
but let himself read it once more, silently, slowly: Turning and turning
in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall
apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of
innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are
full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of
Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A
shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as
the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of
the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony
sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast,
its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? * *
Quoted from Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, (MacMillan), by permission
of Mrs. W. B. Yeats.

Penny let him read and said nothing; and because she saw that something
had moved him deeply--for when he was finished he let the book lie on
his lap for a moment, his eyes fixed broodingly before him--she did not
even dare ask what poem it had been. Then he suddenly closed the book,
replaced it quickly in its narrow place on the shelf beside another
volume of Yeats, and was once more back with her in the room.

She said, "David has been giving me these books. I am sure he
thinks--although he has never actually said it, of course-- that I don't
read enough poetry. So this is his way of propagandizing me."

"And does it work?"

She smiled and nodded, and then she laughed.

"Yes," she admitted.

Dr. MacLntyre lit his pipe very carefully. And then, as his silence
became too obvious, and Penny would not speak, he was forced to say,
"And how is David?"

And that was the way in which the subject of David and Penny was
introduced.

Now Dr. MacLntyre asked no more questions, but let her tell him what her
good sense chose to tell He had only to watch Penelope, to listen to
the earnestness behind her words, to see the light in her eyes when she
talked of David or the worry there when she spoke of her family, to know
that she was neither irresponsible nor thoughtless. That was what he had
wanted to know.

Now he realized that this 'affair," as Mary and Charles Lorrimer would
insist on calling it, was not something flaunted as a piece of youthful
bravado.

"Temporary affair," Charles had said, emphasizing both words bitterly.

"Temporary' was the one word which Dr. MacLntyre himself would not have
forgiven.

"So you see. Grandfather----" Penny ended. She left her words there,
adding nothing. She was watching him anxiously.

He measured his words carefully.

"I see that you have a considerable enthusiasm for this young man," he
remarked dryly. And my journey is not yet over, he reminded himself. I
shall have no peace of mind now until I see David Bos- worth, to
discover for myself if his enthusiasm for Penny is equally considerable
and permanent.

That is all I want to feel. Then I shall write Mary and Charles that the
only thing they should worry over is this refusal of theirs to let
Penelope and David be married.

"Now what about some fresh air? I always feel suffocated in London," he
said, and rose to his feet.

Penny suggested Hampton Court.

"I was there in March with David," she said.

"You'll get plenty of fresh air. I remember I caught a cold."

She spoke the words happily, as if catching a cold could be an enjoyable
experience.

"I haven't been there for almost thirty years," her grandfather
admitted.

"But if you have visited it so recently you'll make a very good guide."

"I'll be responsible for the geography," Penny promised, 'if you, as the
historian, will supply the dates."

But, strangely enough, once they did arrive out at Hamp- ton Court,
Penny was not a very good guide. Her memory, usually clear and accurate,
seemed to have deserted her. Faced with Clock Court, Base Court,
Fountain Court, Chapel Court, Round Kitchen Court, she became
bewildered. And inside the Palace of almost a thousand rooms she was
even less capable. From the Colonnade at the south end of the Clock
Court she led her grandfather up a large noble staircase which surely
was the approach to the Great Hall.

Instead they found themselves in an oak-panelled room surrounded by
weapons.

"Well," her grandfather said philosophically, "I suppose I had to see
the King's Guard Room, anyway. Much more important than the Great Hall,
I'm sure. Now we shall try for Queen Anne's Drawing Room and end up in
Henry the Eighth's Wine Cellar."

Penny looked at him ruefully.

"I'm awfully sorry," she said. She was remembering that her grandfather
prided himself on wasting no time if he had to go sightseeing. Once he
had suggested that the Oxford English Dictionary should bring its
definition of tourist more up to date.

"Tourist: a man who gets lost, a man with shortening temper, a man with
sore feet. Of . detour." "Not at all," he said, with a smile, as if he
were highly enough amused by an idea, now forming, about her last visit
here.

"And this kind of sightseeing really is a great improvement over the
usual variety: this has all the joy of the unexpected."

"I do remember the Board Walk and the gardens and the Tijou Screen,"
Penelope protested. She added, with a smile to match her grandfather's,
"Once I find them, that is."

They did eventually, with the help of a guide-book and directions from
two guides.

"There's the screen of panels," Penny said with relief, looking towards
the set of tall wrought-iron gates leading to the river.

"Extremely sharp memory, considering how unobtrusive they are."

Penny's cheeks reddened, and there was an amused apology in the way she
glanced at him.

Then she settled her arm comfortably on her grandfather's, and paced
slowly with him through the gardens.

"At least," she remarked appeasingly, 'you are getting fresh air."

"Is that what it is? I was puzzled for a moment."

Penny thought. Everything is all right. He isn't angry with me about
David.

He never is angry when he starts teasing me ...  She smiled at her
grandfather. He was walking, she suddenly noticed, more slowly than she
remembered.

He was saying, "Now that I have begun this journey I shall make the most
of it. I am going to Oxford to see Chaundler, probably for a week or
two. Then I shall go to Paris to see Latisse at the Sorbonne.

There are some points about the summing up in my book which I want to
discuss with him. Then I shall return to London by July. Unless I am
tempted to take a little trip with Latisse into the Beaune country.

That might help to inspire me in that lecture at the Sorbonne if I am
asked to give it." "Will you see David in Oxford?" Penny asked.

"I hope so. You told me he was working hard, but perhaps he can spare an
hour or so for me."

"Of course he will. He wants to see you, I know." "That was what he said
in his last letter to me." Dr. MacIntyre paused, and then asked quite
simply, "When are you going to see him next?"

Penelope looked squarely at her grandfather.

"He is coming to London this week-end," she said.

"Then, after that, I shall't see him until his Finals are over."

"And then?"

"We have still to discuss that. We shall probably make the decision this
weekend."

*I hope it will be the right one, Penelope."

"What is " right"? Right for Mother and Father? Or right for David and
me?"

Dr. MacLntyre hesita then halted.

"Yes, I know. There this. It was forced on us " Out of the best of
mother love you."

Penny was silent.

"I makes everything so we away in dejection. She flies fluttering so
unde wide border of flowers. was her first touch of bi strange ways of
show even write, but set Moi: through her letters. Wt don't they realize
that f shutting up a daughte: water I still wouldn't ch " Now, now,
Penelope children of your own things that worried yc Frankly, I never
appre had to sit up night af three years old and had being five myself,
and h I had scarlet fever. Yes, then."

"But, Grandfather, I what Mother and Fame I warned Mary last thought: I
told her thi towards the children.

"You are angry with n " No, Penny. Not angry "Please don't. Not y from
him, stared fixed perfect formation, adva of tears over her eyes. ^
circles on straight lines, to turn them red. A r< that matters is appear
an of the people who thou^ He patted her arm awkwardly, knowing then how
much he could hurt her.

Not you too. If he failed her, like the others  ... "I'm sorry, my dear.
We who are old forget so very easily that young people are capable of
dealing with life by themselves. They don't need us as much as we should
like to believe." He paused, and then asked, "You are confident?"

*I know what I am doing," Penny said slowly. She was groping for words
to explain what she felt.

"There are some things in life which men and women have got to decide
for themselves. Not impulsively.

Arguing it all out, really believing in what they do. Isn't that true?"

"Yes," her grandfather agreed. It was equally true that those who did
not argue their actions out, for themselves and by themselves, lost
control of their own life. Even the first decision of a four-year-old
child, whether to tell a lie and escape punishment or to be truthful and
take the consequences a hard decision, for the right one meant pain and
the wrong one meant no reproof), went towards building the future man or
woman.

He suddenly realized that Penny was speaking again.

"I'm sorry, my dear," he said. T digress mentally nowadays. Something is
said, and I agree or disagree, but that isn't enough, it seems. I must
go wandering off." He smiled.

"What was it you were saying?"

"I was saying that sometimes in life there's a crisis forced on us."

"Not sometimes. Always. At repeated intervals."

"If we accept it, don't fight against it, we may have tragedy. And we
have only ourselves to blame. I mean--oh, I am putting this so badly."

"Give me a practical example," suggested Dr. MacLntyre shrewdly.

"Take David and yourself, for instance."

"Well, we could have been separated by our families. If we had accepted
that, then we would always have regretted what we had lost.

I mean, if we hadn't made sure that nothing was going to separate us, if
we hadn't--I mean----"

"You mean that you were faced with what might have been the elements of,
tragedy? And that, by adjusting your lives to beat them instead of
accepting them, you have averted the tragedy? But what of other
things--what of worry, malicious gossip, scandal? They could mean
tragedy too."

"The only real tragedy would be to forget the value of what David and I
have together."

"Did David say that, or is it you?" Dr. MacLntyre asked, with a wry
smile.

He had been hearing echoes of David all afternoon. As it should be, of
course: two people fell in love, and if they were to stay in love, then
a third personality, a joint one to which they each contributed, was
created between them. No doubt when he saw David in Oxford he would see
this third personality shaping too. If he didn't, then he would have
real cause to worry about his granddaughter.

"David," she admitted.

"But I came to believe that too, in my own way, in my own time. So we
are both saying it to you. We believe it.

And each day we are together proves it. And all the days we aren't
together prove it too. That is why I said that it could only be our
decisions that mattered. We are happy when we are together, we are
miserable without each other. Only we can know how much."

"I see," he said gently. He suddenly wished that he could live to see
what his Penelope and her David made of their lives ...  Then he
realized that, even by this regret, he was expressing his confidence in
them.

He said happily, "Well, anyone listening to us this afternoon could tell
that one of us was very young and one of us was very old."

"Why?" Penny slackened her pace to match his as they turned to leave the
gardens.

"Because we have been talking about Life. What is the next subject up
for discussion? Religion?"

Penny laughed, pressing his arm.

"I want to hear all about Inchnamurren. I shall't be able to visit it
this summer, you know."

Never again shall I have the long days there, she thought. Long holidays
were a thing of the past, which you put away with your childhood--lazy,
unhurried days in a magic place.

"How are the seals?

Do they still lie on the black rocks on the white sands?" And the sun,
sinking slowly from the wide, naming sky, leaving on the horizon a
searing line of red for one moment as it slipped into the Atlantic
waters. And the waves, no longer roughly beaten copper, but suddenly
dark and cold as lead, with fading purple lights ...  And as you turned
back to the village, the west wind behind you, the taste of salt spray
still on your lips, the last gulls silenced in the darkness, there was
the low moon rising over the red cliffs of Loch Innish to welcome you.
And the arm of the sea, flung round the island, was silvered and black.

"Tell me about Inchnamurren," she said.

And she knew by the way he talked so easily, telling her affectionately
of the things she wanted to know, that he had decided for David and for
her.

Chapter Thirty-four.

THE AGE OF GOLD.

David paid off the taxi, trying to appear nonchalant. Yes, this was the
Square, this was the number. But as he stood looking at the house his
heart beat with sudden unsteadiness, and his excitement, so controlled
on the journey from Oxford, now mounted.

She won't be home yet, he reminded himself. You are early.

A middle-aged, untidy woman with a stained apron covering her skirt came
up from the basement to let him enter the hall. Third floor back," she
said.

She was too tired even to be curious. But he didn't need the directions.
He had imagined it a hundred times. He mounted the steep, narrow
staircase, taking two or three steps at a time.

Then on the top landing, facing the door with its neatly printed card,
looking at the name, he paused.

She won't be home yet, he told himself again. For a moment, as he raised
his hand to knock on the door, he had the cold fear that she wasn't
there and wouldn't ever be, that the card with her name was a lie, that
she had left and never would return. Then he heard her voice saying.

"One moment. Who is it?"

"David," he answered. And she was there, as he remembered her. She
wasn't just a dream to soften a lonely night, to ease him into sleep.

She was there, and his arms were round her, and her hair had the same
soft perfume, her skin had the same touch of silk.

"Oh, Penny." He held her close and closer to him, straining the young
soft, firm body against his, tightening his grip as if he would never
let her go.

He kissed her again, feeling her arms round his neck, her lips answering
his. Her eyes were shining.

It's true, he thought, it is all true. He relaxed, loosening his grip on
her waist, sliding his hands along her arms to grasp her hands. He stood
back to look at her.

"Hello, my beautiful," he said.

She laughed uncertainly, with a catch in her throat.

"Hello, darling," she said, and she hid her face in his shoulder.

"Well, I hope it's happiness," he said half worriedly, half comically,
and succeeded in making her laugh. He drew her towards the nearest
armchair, pulled her gently on to his knee, and reached for a
handkerchief.

"Blow hard," he told her.

"That's better." But he was still worried.

"Now what was that all about?"

"I'm just happy, darling." She was smiling now as she tucked the
handkerchief back into the cuff of his sleeve.

"It hit me suddenly: I realized then how lonely I had been without you,
David."

He smoothed her hair with his cheek and tightened his arm round her
waist as she tried to rise.

"Relax, darling. Let me enjoy myself," he said.

"But, David, look at me! I haven't finished dressing. We'll be late."

"So we shall." But he made no move to release her. Her hair was loose as
if she had been brushing it, and had not yet had time to comb it into
place.

She wore a dressing-gown of some kind of dull, gleaming cloth, smooth to
the touch. "So we shall," David repeated firmly, and tightened his arm
still more.

The concert?" Penny asked.

Two tickets were standing proudly on the mantelpiece. In Oxford,
planning this evening, it had been an attractive idea to write, "Let's
have dinner at Giovanni's; you shall wear your smartest dress.

And it might be an idea to try for tickets to that Queen's Hall concert.
I see Sargent is to conduct the Hoist, and I've always wanted to be with
you when you first heard it. The London Choir is singing too; the effect
should be astronomisch indeed."

But now he wondered why he should ever have been so insane as to suggest
any plans. They weren't needed. Not with Penny. Just to be with her was
plan enough. He kissed her hair and then the side of her brow, gently
lifting her face so < that it turned upward to him, and his mouth
followed the line of her cheek to her lips, resting there, owning them,
declaring his love more fully than a thousand words could ever do. He
felt her body stir gently in his arms, and his murmured name was lost in
the long kiss.

They arrived at the concert at the end of the interval. ("The Planets
are last on the programme, anyway," David had said. "What is played
first doesn't usually matter. It is generally Oberon or Leonora No.

3. ") They raced into the Queen's Hall, hand in hand, and then slackened
their pace to a decorous walk down the aisle towards their seats. An
excitement stirred in their blood which was not merely the sharing of
the expectant tension around them. The crowd and the lights only
emphasized their secret happiness. Penny's eyes turned from the
platform, with its massed array of musicians and singers, and gave a
glancing smile. David bent to pick up the programme which had slipped
from her lap, and his hand rested on her ankle for a moment.

She was smiling openly as she watched the conductor take his place, and
then bent her head to study the programme notes.

David settled comfortably in his seat and prepared himself for the
opening chords with their grim, relentless rhythm. The audience around
him slumped into their self-chosen listening postures. Penny, sitting so
quietly, unmoving, smiling no longer, stiffened in fear as the marching
feet hammered into her emotions. Feel, the music said, feel what can
destroy all happiness; hear what can be the end of all hope. And then,
even at the height of its warning, the music relented, changed, slipped
into the serene, long, descending chords of "Venus, the Bringer of
Peace." After the noise and the tumult it became the vague, shimmering
beauty of repose, the last trembling note of happiness achieved.

David felt the music attack him as he had never been weakened by it
before.

The muted chord, the liquid notes shivered down his spine.

His hand tightened gently round Penny's, and he felt it tremble within
his.

We have given each other this experience, he suddenly realized. In some
strange way our minds and bodies are alive to every note, every change
in tone, every breath and sigh in the music. The emotional and spiritual
revelation each added to the other as the climax mounted. In this moment
evil and ugliness were banished from the world. In this moment all
thought and emotion were purified into absolute good.

For if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back, and
fetch the age of gold.

Even when the choir's voice, soaring in the music of the crystal
spheres, the ninefold harmony, had died away into a silence as vast and
living as that of eternity, they sat together quite motionless. It was
the young man next to David who brought him back into the hall of
shuffling feet, of sharp coughs, of surging applause.

"How did you like it?" the young man asked too loudly of his companion.

Perhaps he was unwilling to pass any judgment until he was sure how the
other felt.

"Gay, but noisy," his friend said, in the clipped, decided voice which
never gave any right of appeal. The other man nodded in agreement and
stopped applauding. Then they both rose, crushed their way across Penny
and David, murmured the conventional but meaningless "Sorry," and walked
leisurely up the aisle. All need for haste was over now that they had
made complete nuisances of themselves, David thought angrily. Certainly
they had broken the spell. David looked at Penny, still silent, as they
emerged into a world of honking taxis; jostling crowds; voices telling
each other how marvelous it was, and by the telling losing something of
the marvel; the smell of a warm city packed with human bodies and
movement. The spell was broken. But the experience, felt so deeply, was
his to be held and remembered.

"Hello, Bosworth," a voice said out of the crowd. It was Marain with a
strange young man. There were brief introductions. Marain, after a
slight stare in the direction of Penny, seemed not to notice her. He
turned all his attention on David. His companion remained quite silent,
aloof from every one, perhaps even from himself.

"I hear you have been working hard," Marain chided David, reminding him,
too, that he had seen very little of Marain in the last few months.
Marain would never admit that he did any work whatsoever.

David ignored the slightly amused smile, and said, "How did you find
Germany? You were there at Easter, weren't you?"

"There will be a revolution," Marain said cheerfully.

"The people won't stand for the present regime. Besides, the Ger- man
Left is the best organized in Europe. Are you catching the train? We can
share a taxi." "I'm staying in town," David said.

"Well, what about lunch some time next week? You haven't abandoned all
interest in politics, have you?" "No," David said. He was thinking that
this invitation was, after all, Marain's way of offering an apology. For
last month the magazine Experiment had died a natural death, and from
the very causes that David and Marain had once quarrelled over. Breen's
father had at last found the solution to all the problems of his son. He
had stopped paying any allowance, and Breen could no longer afford to
play at being earnest. He was pushing a pen in an office for three
pounds a week. In the evenings, so Margaret had reported, he was running
up a good-attendance card at the nearest Oswald Mosley meeting- room, no
doubt taking lessons in the manly sport of knuckle- dusting.

But Marain, quite unaware that David knew all about the trouble over
Experiment, was speaking again.

"Good, good," he was saying.

"Let's say next Wednesday. I've an idea which we must talk over. There
is no doubt that the Germans are damned suspicious of us. If we could
make them understand that there is no reason to be, then the Nazis
wouldn't have a chance with their propaganda to the German people."

"You mean with the myth that Germany is surrounded by enemies and must
prepare to defend herself?"

"Exactly. But we all have to make some kind of gesture which will be
publicized in every country. If we say that no young man in Britain is
going to fight, then that will prove to every one, Germans included,
that Hitler has absolutely no case." "Will it?" David asked. He did not
want to start discussing it now, anyway.

He made a remark about the concert, drawing Penny into the conversation.

But Marain went on, "Of course, it is only the germ of an idea, and it
will take some time and a good lot of thought to work out. The Nazis
will be cynical to suit their own purpose, but then the Nazis are not
the German people." "No?" David asked, looked at Penny, saw the
expression in her eyes.

She knew instinctively what he thought about all this. He realized then
how close they had come to each other, when even thoughts could be
listened to as understandably as words.

The silent young man beside Marain stirred gently to say it was getting
rather late  ...  train  ...

"Wednesday," Marain said. A slightly relaxed muscle in his face
suggested a smile. And then he and his friend disappeared as quickly
into the crowd as they had emerged from it.

"He didn't like me," Penny said, after she and David had walked some
distance in silence. She was hurt. She wanted David's friends to like
her.

"Not that he gave me much of a chance. Or perhaps I should have been one
of the German people."

David laughed.

"You have more effect than you think, old girl. He did not have to talk
to me to-night at all, you know. He could have come to see me in
Oxford."

"Why was he so rude, then? As if he resented me, as if I were an
intruder."

"He didn't think he was being rude, and he probably could give two or
three reasons why he ignored you like that, and none of them would be
right. The true one he wouldn't like to recognize at all. What do men
feel, do you imagine, when they see a competitor with a pretty girl on
his arm?

Especially if they don't happen to know many pretty girls?"

"You always restore my vanity, darling. What would I do without you?"

"You've got that slightly wrong. You mean, what would I do without you?
And the answer is Marain. That would have been me if I hadn't met you."

"No, David. You couldn't ever be like that." She was both horrified and
amused.

*A year ago I was developing nicely into something closely resembling
our friend Marain." Then David smiled and said, "I had quite an escape,
hadn't I? If you had met me tonight for the first time, would you have
disliked me as much as you disliked Marain?"

"If you had met me for the first time to-night, would you have ignored
me?"

David laughed.

"I should have lost the train," he admitted.

But she still wasn't persuaded.

"I really am inadequate, David. About your work, I mean. And politics. I
should be listening to you for hours--what you feel should be done about
this or not done about that." Yes, Marain had conveyed that quite
clearly: David with a girl was less important than David as one of
Marain's circle.

"Heaven forbid," David said, in genuine alarm.

"You've been reading the advice paragraphs on the woman's page, all
about sharing his interests," he teased her. And then he added quietly.
You do share mine, old girl. But we didn't choose each other just to
have suitable audience, you know. Later, when we are married and have
each other day in, day out, I'll probably begin to bore you with all my
thoughts that are only argued out. Be careful, then, or I'll start
practising my speeches on you too. How would you like that?"

"I'd love it," Penny said, and she did look as if she meant it. And that
pleased him somehow, however much he had protested against it.

As they crossed over Oxford Street to follow the wide curve of Regent
Street down towards Piccadilly Circus he said, with unexpected anger,
"But damn Marain's eyes. This was one night I didn't want to think about
politics and problems. I wonder if he sat through that concert only
finding social significance, or lack of it, in the music." He suddenly
felt sorry for Marain. It was a new feeling, too. His annoyance left him
then.

Penny said, "If it had not been Marain it would have been something
else: those two young men who were in such a hurry to leave and then
blocked up the entrance; or the street noises; or something." She looked
at the brightly lit red bus as it roared down the sweep of Regent
Street. At this hour of night the pavements were less crowded, the shops
were shut, the traffic was lighter.

But that only reminded you of the busy street in day-time, when it was
fully alive. A sleeping street always seemed unnatural. There was no
real feeling of peace, even when it rested. It was full of latent
energy, ready to burst into noisy demonstration.

"Because a city is a practical place," Penny went on.

"Everything about it pulls us back into a world where practical people
live.

We should have been on Inchnamurren, and then the music would still have
been around us long after it had ended."

"Only," he pointed out, 'we couldn't go to a Queen's Hall and hear that
concert on Inchnamurren. Life doesn't have cut-and-dried classifications
like a library: you don't find perfection all complete under one
heading.

Not even on your Inchnamurren, Penny."

She looked at him, thinking now about their love.

"Nothing is perfect?" She was half puzzled, half worried.

He didn't answer. Perfection, that strange experience of unexpected
moments: moments which came often unsought, released you as irrationally
as they had gripped you and possessed you, leaving you with a sense of
wonder over the unexplainable.

"Nothing?" Penny asked again.

"At the concert  ..." she went on, and then she saw his eyes and
realized she did not have to explain her idea of perfection.

"And before the concert," she said quietly.

"In spite of the Marains, I haven't forgotten. Even in a city street it
is still here, David." She raised his hand which held hers to touch her
heart quickly, lightly.

"Yes," he said. Each experience we share, even my hand on her breast at
that moment, is something which cannot be taken away from us. It is
always ours, if we keep it this way.

He looked down at her.

"For two pins I'd kiss you right now," he said. He paused suddenly, and
did kiss her. To two passing women, watching with shocked curiosity, he
said, "Yes, most enjoyable, thank you." To Penny he said, "We'll keep it
this way. Always."

They exchanged the little smile of knowledge, of experience shared,
which needs no explanation. And then, arm in arm, they swung down Regent
Street--oblivious to Indian silks in Liberty's, South African diamonds
in the Goldsmiths' window, French perfumes and laces in the Galeries
Lafayette, Harris tweeds and Shetland wool in Jaeger's, Balkan
cigarettes, prints from Brussels and Vienna, glass from Sweden, silver
from Denmark, movies from America--to- wards the Cafe Royal, as if
indeed the world was stretched before them.

Chapter Thirty-five.

MRS LORRIMERIS BLOWN OFF COURSE.

Mrs. Lorrimer entered her drawing-room, looked around it with pleasure,
as she always did, and walked over the thick green carpet to her private
writing-table. For a moment she stood looking out of the window,
postponing the moment of sitting down.

The heavy shower of rain had ended, and there was enough blue in the sky
to patch a Dutchman's trousers: so it would clear, and with this warm
summer breeze the tennis-courts would be dry enough for the last day of
the championship. It would be nice if Charles could win this year: it
had been five years since he had won the finals. Mary Lorrimer smiled
tolerantly as she reflected what children men were, always attempting
more than they should try to do.

The sun was shining now: the patch of blue sky was growing. Yes, it
would clear up nicely, after all. The trees in the Crescent's locked
garden were fresh and crisply green with the look of June. But soon it
would be July.

She remembered what she had been trying to forget: the letter to be
written to Penelope.

"Before July," her father had warned her. It had been an unpleasant
warning, as unpleasant to her as the rest of Dr. MacLntyre's letter. She
had been so shocked, so scandalized by some of his ideas that she had
been ashamed to show the letter to Charles. But when she did his
reaction had been bewildering.

He was still against this marriage. He must be. (He had not answered
that letter which David Bosworth had written to him at Easter, asking if
he might visit Charles's office in June, when his future would be
settled. ) But Charles had made no comment at all on Father's letter,
not even at the mention of Bosworth's probably brilliant future. That
had been Mr. Chaundler's phrase, quoted by Father. But, of course, a don
would always think that of any favourite pupil. "So, as a prospective
son-in-law, if you insist on thinking only of the practical side of this
marriage, you could do very much worse than accept David Bosworth." Her
father must have written that with a wry smile. And Charles, always
angered by sarcasm used against him, had said nothing at all after he
had read the letter. If he had been shocked or horrified by it, as she
herself was, then he had not allowed that to be seen. Nor did he allow
any more discussion. When she had begun to talk about Penelope he had
said suddenly, "No more, Mary. I'm tired of hearing this dramatized." An
odd remark, and an unjust one too.

Suddenly Mary Lorrimer felt uncertain, as if somehow she now stood alone
in this matter. It's unfair, she thought miserably: he won't discuss
anything, and it is important to discuss it. It's unfair to leave
everything to me.

He's evading it now. He can't possibly start siding with Father. Or is
he?

And is he only unwilling to admit that he is? Impossible, she told
herself.

She turned abruptly away from the window and sat down at her
writing-table.

Before July her father had said. She glanced unnecessarily at the
calendar.

She began the letter. Then she abandoned the half-written sheet of
paper.

She must deal with this tactfully. She must think clearly.

She opened a small drawer, unlocking it first, where she had placed her
father's letter. She unfolded it again, her eyes following its small,
neat writing impatiently. Yes, she knew it all off by heart.

First there was the paragraph about Penelope. Well and happy. (How could
she be happy in a single room, cooking, cleaning, and at the same time
working in a furniture shop? ) Then a paragraph about David Bosworth:
his work, his family (that ridiculous sister with her superior airs),
and his prospects. Prospects! After that there was a paragraph giving
her father's own impressions of Penelope and David Bosworth, formed not
from their answers to his questions-- *A crude and cheap way of getting
information'--but by just listening to them talk about each other.

"Not only what they said, but the way they said it."

But it was the last pages of the letter which had upset her most of all.

Even yet she could scarcely believe her eyes.

All this has been most distasteful for me to write, but I have set down
everything clearly as honest evidence for Charles to consider.

And now I am going to set down a few thoughts which are directed frankly
at you, Mary. I have no control over Charles's decisions; they depend on
his conscience. But I can at least give you, Mary, some advice, for that
is a father's privilege. If you take it I shall be happy: Penelope's
future will then be her own responsibility. If you don't, then
Penelope's future is your entire responsibility.

I should not need to tell you the facts of life at your age. But there
is one real purpose behind falling in love, even if those who never
could call a spade by its own name have done their idealistic worst to
disguise that fact.

A man does not fall in love in order to have a pretty companion to take
to a theatre or a football match. He can enjoy that without having to
love the girl. But he cannot love a girl without wanting to possess her,
and marriage is the solution that civilized society has found for that
very natural phenomenon. It is the logical solution because marriage is
the simplest and strongest way of living together, and a. man and woman
in love will live together.

Don't write back saying that living together is immoral. You and Charles
have been doing it for twenty-odd years now. And I am not discussing
people who experiment with love as if it were a fashion, a whim, or
merely a physical sensation. If that is all they want out of life let
them have it.

That's punishment enough. I am talking about men and women who are in
love and therefore want to live together for the rest of their lives.
Like you and Charles. I put no objections in the way of your marriage
(although I could have, for you were young), and so you both got what
you wanted. But what about the less fortunate people in love? Those who
must face the lack of money, or their families? In their desperation
they will find their own solution. It isn't done with the childish idea
of being daring, of wishing to prove they are "modern," unconventional,
contemptuous of accepted behaviour. I am talking about men and women in
love who have discovered that the outward symbols of marriage are of
less value than the essential love which is the solid core of lasting
marriage.

And to me that is the most important thing in anyone's life.

Now, Mary, pick up this letter once more and smooth it out where you
crumpled it. It is no good throwing it aside. You would always want to
know how I ended my fatherly talk to you.

I can hear your objections, even at the distance of some four hundred
miles.

"What about control, discipline?" What about it, Mary? Doesn't it take
self-control and discipline, and hard work too, to make love a success?

You say, "But why can't they wait?" Wait for what? What have you given
them to wait for?

You say, "But they are young, impetuous. They have all their lives
before them.

There is no need to hurry." How can anyone be so confident of the time
left him that he can afford to waste any of it?

As for being young and impetuous--the more responsibility given to youth
the better for them and their country. There's a growing weakness in
Britain when we call young men "boys" and young women "girls" ; when
middle age and falling hair is considered the first stage of
trustworthiness; when old age and thinning blood is reserved for praise
and distinction, as if the number of years which a man endures must
raise him automatically to the intelligent, capable class of men. We
forget too often that youth is a reservoir of power and energy; that it
has a sincerity and a longing to prove itself that should be used.
Instead we ignore this potential strength, or we discourage it, so that
its vital quality is lost.

If at this moment you think I am being fantastic, I should remind you
that our country was not built up, either in its history or its
literature, by the "Typical Englishman" we have so popularized. We
forget too easily the kind of men who gave us our heritage; their
energy, their vitality, their passions, vehemence, wild emotions.

Yes, I know these can be vices as well as virtues. But better strength
which has its mistakes than no strength at all. And there is a high
courage and generosity in youth, which can accept the risk of mistakes
and even turn it to success. There is no need to be afraid for the man
or woman who keeps that high courage in his heart.

So put your fears aside, Mary. Penny has her job; David will have his;
together they will have enough to live on. And later, when Miss.
Bosworth has finished her education, Penny need not keep her job unless
she wants to.

They are, as you see, not without plans.

Write to Penny. Better still, go down to London and listen to her.

But write her, certainly, before July.

And that is the last piece of fatherly advice which I shall ever give
you.

It is much too painful a pleasure.

Mary Lorrimer let her father's letter fall on the desk. She stared at
the note she had begun to Penelope. I won't write, she thought. I won't.
Then she picked up her pen again. She heard Betty's footsteps running
downstairs.

Her youngest daughter burst into the room with her usual imitation of a
volcano in eruption.

"Betty! Please!"

"Sorry, Mummy. Still writing old letters?"

"I thought you had gone with Moira to see Daddy play. Pull up your
stocking, Betty; it looks so slovenly."

"I'm going out to the courts now," Betty said, with slight difficulty in
breathing as she twisted a leg and looked over her shoulder to see the
stocking seam. She had grown taller in this last year, and the shapeless
body had begun to assume its proper proportions. Mrs. Lorrimer stared in
amazement. It was really so noticeable now.

"Betty," she said sharply, 'why aren't you wearing your jacket?"

Betty's cheerful face clouded over. She looked down at the white blouse,
the striped tie, the navy skirt, black stockings, and flat-heeled lacing
shoes.

"But, Mummy, it's a clean blouse?"

"Do as you are told, Betty, and don't argue. Why were you so long in
dressing, anyway?"

"My watch stopped when I was working. I must have forgotten to wind it
again. I've finished my novel. Mummy. It's wizard, it really is. The
hero finds a witch-goddess guarding the temple, only this girl isn't a
witch or a goddess really, she's just a----"

" Yes, darling. You'll be late for Daddy's match. Why didn't Moira take
you with her?"

Betty stared incredulously at her mother.

"Moira didn't want me."

"I am sure your sister wouldn't dream of leaving you behind," Mrs.
Lorrimer said indignantly. I must speak to Moira, she thought; she must
not hurt Betty's feelings in this way, always running off and avoiding
her.

Oh, wouldn't she? Betty thought, but she did not dare say that.

Besides, who wanted to go along with an old sister, and sit in the
grown-up part of the veranda?

"I've promised to meet Barbara and Jean Mair anyway," she said, in an
offhand way. And Bobby Turner and the Lang boys.

"Well, you had better run along then." Mrs. Lorrimer suddenly stared at
her youngest daughter incredulously.

"Betty, have you been putting powder on your nose?"

Betty looked startled.

"Powder?" she asked carefully. And then, with emphasis, "Oh, no, Mummy."
Golly, she thought, that was a narrow squeak. Did I put on too much
oatmeal flour? She waved her hand and ran out of the room, saying, "I
must simply dash. The girls will be waiting for me.

"Bye."

"Good-bye, dear. Come home with Daddy, won't you? And put on that
jacket."

"Yes, Mummy," Betty called back from the hall. If it got too warm, as it
would, she could always take the jacket off when she reached the tennis
grounds. It made her look so fat. Why couldn't she have a fitted one
like Moira's and silk stockings too?

Mrs. Lorrimer picked up her pen once more. How easy it was to understand
Betty. If only she could stay at this age for ever, instead of having to
grow up and go out into the world. As Penelope had done. You brought up
girls carefully, made them sweet and innocent and trusting. And then
they met men, and you did nothing but worry. Why were men like that,
anyway?

Look at her own father and these shocking ideas he had expressed about
men and women in love..

Why, if an elderly scholar, a quiet, gentle man, could have thoughts
like these, what must younger men think of life?

Charles--surely he did not think like that, or rather feel like that?

For Father's letter had emphasized emotion rather than thought. Yes,
that was where he was wrong: he had not talked about rational human
beings, but only those who were driven on by--she thought of the word
"passion," but slipped it quickly out of her mind into the deep cellar
where all disturbing thoughts must be buried, walled up, not discussed,
not even imagined in privacy.

At that point the parlour maid brought in the silver tea-tray, and Mary
Lorrimer abandoned her writing-table. The letter could be written after
tea.

She must rest now, and put her feet up as the doctor said, and try to
stop worrying. She picked up the new novel which Boots's library had
recommended to her this morning. It was really so difficult to-day to
find suitable books, what with all the violent thoughts and words and
monstrous ideas that so many writers were using. She felt irritation at
her father's possible reply to that: what about Chaucer, or Shakespeare,
or Balzac, or Tolstoy?

As if one didn't know that those were classics. Classics were different.

Now she must stop thinking about such things, or she never would forget
her worries. She had to get her mind calm and clear before she wrote to
Penelope. She opened the book on her lap, looking at the first page then
at the last page and then at a page near the middle.

Yes, it did seem a pleasant story; about a pleasant house and pleasant
people. Now nice  ...

Mrs. Lorrimer poured herself a second cup of tea, and began to read.

The front door opened rudely. There was a low murmur of confused voices.

Moira was calling to her. She laid aside the book with regret. Moira
must have brought some of her friends in for tea: late, too. Goodness,
it was late. Was there never any peace in this house, with all this
perpetual running in and out, all these unexpected guests? Really, she
must speak seriously to Moira about this kind of thing.

She rose as Moira entered the room with her hat in her hand and her hair
ruffled.

"I'm just about to write a letter," she said, trying to convey a broad
hint in her words without appearing rude to any listening guest. And
then she stood quite still as Moira was standing. Moira's face was tense
and white.

The murmur in the hall had given way to shuffling feet.

"What's wrong, Moira? Betty  ...  Has something happened to Betty?"

Moira shook her head.

"It's Daddy," she said, in a stifled voice, and burst into tears

Chapter Thirty-six.

SHE SETS SAIL GALLANTLY IN ANOTHER DIRECTION

Mary Lorrimer was alone in the silent drawing-room. It was the third day
of Charles Lorrimer's illness. Everything was under control again--the
alarm, the tears, the terrifying emotions which threatening death
arouses. The capable nurses had established their territory in the
Lorrimers' bedroom, an Mrs. Lorrimer had found herself exiled. She
disliked illness anyway, regarded it as a worrying nuisance, a disturber
o routine. She wasn't, therefore, a particularly good nurse. Ye she
resented the nurses' authority.

"But Charles needs me," shi had said pathetically to Dr. Morrison.

"Well, you are here i he calls for you," the doctor had answered
soothingly.

Whici was true. So she put her energies into superintending thi
whispered footsteps and lowered voices even down to thi basement
kitchen.

The doctor had just left after his late evening visit. He ha held out
more hope that before, and at the same time hi cheerful words had thrown
her into a panic.

"Definiti improvement to-day. There's a good chance now that the firs
shock will not be followed by a second one."

And Mrs. Lor rimer, who for three days had not even been thinking about
the possibility of a second shock, stared in amazement at D Morrison.

She had thought the worst danger was over whei they had brought Charles
home from the club. Now shi realized for the first time the full meaning
of the nurses' over officious watchfulness, of the doctor's guarded
phrases, of thi serious words which Charles's business partners had
spoken They had all known the danger, but she had never thought i
possible that Charles would die.

Charles couldn't die; so mud of his life was still before him. She had
glanced sharply a Dr. Morrison's thoughtful face.

"Won't Charles ever be fulb recovered?" she heard herself ask. Dr.
Morrison had hesitated

"Never fully; never quite the same again," he had answerec gravely.

"He will have to take care, perhaps give up much o his work, rest for a
long time, look after himself." And as hi left her he added, "I warned
him about that blood-pres sun of his last summer, you know. I told him
to cut down worl and exercise, and I prescribed a diet for him. Didn't
hi follow it?"

Yes, Charles had followed it to a certain extent. But i was difficult
for a man with so many public engagements t( be able to keep that strict
diet. And Charles had never tol< her why he was supposed to keep a diet:
he had let thi family think that it was simply indigestion which
troublec him, a case of stomach ulcers. He had not told them thi truth,
perhaps wanting to spare them worry, perhaps refusing to believe himself
that he could be made a helpless invalic overnight. Charles had been so
proud of his physical strength.

Overnight? In a few minutes. For that was how it had happened. He had
pleaded a sudden attack of cramp towards the middle of the match, had
walked firmly by himself towards the Club Room; and there the shock had
struck him down. Thank Heaven, Mary Lorrimer thought, remembering
Charles's horror of scenes, that he had been inside the Club House and
not on the tennis-courts at the time. And if he had not taken the
warning signal, if he had gone on playing? She suddenly realized that he
would have been dead. Charles dead, and Mary Lorrimer a widow with three
daughters to provide for. She grew white-lipped at that thought.

Mary Lorrimer faced the drawing-room, seeing its value for the first
time since she had come to live in this house. She had looked at it
then, and wondered delightedly that it was hers. Now she looked at it,
this pleasant room symbolizing a pleasant way of living, and she knew it
was lost to her.

In a few minutes, she repeated. It only had taken a few minutes to end
everything built up through years. And then the new feeling of humility,
of fear, of insecurity struck her its full blow. She sat down on the
nearest couch and buried her face in a cushion as if to shut away the
lost room.

Moira was saying in a hushed "voice, "Mummy! Daddy's awake now. The
nurse says you may see him." Moira, embarrassed, troubled at the sight
of her mother's unhappy face, was saying over and over again, "Don't
worry; it's all right, Mummy." But she knew it wasn't all right.

I wish I were Penelope, Moira thought suddenly: Penelope with a career
she really likes, not just forced into teaching because mother kept
complaining about money nowadays. Penelope with David Bosworth.

Penelope is free, and I am tied to the family. It is unfair, unfair.

Penelope is always the lucky one.

"He said one word," Moira went on.

"He said, "Penny." Mummy, you should have let me write to her."

The two women looked at each other. Then Mrs. Lorrimer rose and made her
way to the staircase.

At the bedroom door she halted. What, she wondered miserably, had made
Charles think of Penelope? Was it possible that lying there, so
motionless on that bed, he had been conscious some of the time,
conscious of his nearness to death, conscious of the problem of Penelope
which must not be left unsolved if he were to die? Charles will blame
me, Mary Lorrimer thought: yet it wasn't I who was against Penelope; I
was only doing what Charles wanted to be done. He was always so busy
with his career.

Everything I have done has been all for Charles. He must know that. And
on that resolution, having persuaded herself that she was telling the
truth, she opened the bedroom door.

The nurse smiled encouragingly. Charles looked so weak, so white, so
helpless, so unlike Charles that Mary Lorrimer again felt the terrifying
fear. She took the limp hand in her own. Charles, I love you, get well,
get well, she thought. She slipped to her knees beside the bed, and
tried to smile.

"Don't worry, Charles," she said, when she could control her voice.

"Don't worry."

The white lips were forming themselves slowly.

"July," she seemed to hear. July. He was remembering her father's
letter.

*I know, dear," she said.

"I've written the letter to Penelope, saying we agree with Father. Shall
I post it?"

He tried to say something, and then she saw that his eyes were happy.

They, alone in his face, could still communicate with her. The look of
trouble and worry had gone in them. They were happy.

She kissed him, even if the nurse was watching them, and murmured close
to his ear, "Get well, Charles, and everything will be all right. That
is all that matters."

Then the nurse was signing to her, and she had to rise to her feet and
move to the door. He had closed his eyes, and there was a subtle change,
almost an expression of relief, on the blank face.

Mary Lorrimer sealed the letter to Penelope.

After four weeks of deliberation it had taken her four minutes to write.
And now it was ready to post, and the white lie told upstairs in the
bedroom had become truth. Well, she thought, that was that..

She tore up her father's letter. That was that, she repeated; another
problem decided. Now she would only have to worry about the future of
two daughters: one, at least, was off her hands.

Not that I'll ever be able to like David Bosworth, she admitted frankly
to herself. But if Penelope was determined to be in love with him--well,
what could parents do? Penelope's future was Penelope's responsibility.

I hope they will be happy, she added doubtfully.

Chapter Thirty-seven.

FINALS.

Final examinations were over; the results had been posted that morning;
and Chaundler asked David to lunch with him and Fairbairn in order to
celebrate David's excellent First. After that David would catch the
afternoon train to London. Most men had gone down from Oxford already:
and the few who had stayed there until the results were out shared the
quiet town with visiting sightseers. As Chaundler sat with his two
guests in his dark, cool room the desultory voices of the tourists
visiting the chapel came drifting in through the opened easement
windows.

The chestnut-trees spread their broad leaves in the warm, breathless
air.

Even the bees were lazy in the strong July heat; a fat black one humbled
his way slowly into the room through the open window, and then lazily,
almost heavily, moved out towards the sun-splashed chestnut-trees again.
It was pleasant, David thought, to sit in a quiet room, to feel as lazy
and unhurried as the world outside. He drank Chaundler's admirable
Amontillado, listened to Fairbairn discussing the differences in
climbing in the Austrian Tyrol and the Swiss Alps, and thought of the
journey to London this late afternoon.

At last Chaundler rose and moved towards the table at the oriel window.
His guests followed him. His scout watched anxiously to see that
everything was just right--the silver cups and bowl that Mr. Chaundler
liked for special occasions, the hock properly iced, the ground ginger
well mixed with sugar for the melon. Everything was just right. The four
men relaxed, each in his own way. And then Fairbairn produced his latest
idea: David, before he settled in London to work on a survey of seasonal
unemployment, was to make a tour. He was to go to America, to the United
States, to see how the problem of unemployment was being tackled there.

Then, having let the idea explode in the quiet room. Fair- bairn began
to explain it in more detail. The United States, probably because of the
advanced specialization of its industry and agriculture, had always had
a serious problem in seasonal unemployment. But it was only when the
depression reached a climax that general and seasonal unemployment
combined to produce a first-magnitude crisis. With their usual violent
energy the Americans had faced the crisis and formed plans to meet it.
It would be interesting to see how far the plans would work; and next
year would be the testing time.

What interested Fairbairn most were two things: how far had seasonal
unemployment tipped the balance towards disaster; how could seasonal
unemployment be regulated? There were other things, too, which would be
interesting to watch: these projected camps for young men, for instance,
where they were taken off the street and trained for jobs; the Public
Works Administration, which intended to avoid the evils of the dole; the
balance of State planning, which must be carefully held if a country of
the size and potential strength of the United States was not to
degenerate into a totalitarian machine. But it was the problem of
seasonal unemployment which interested Fairbairn most.

For he had a theory that there would always be cycles of unemployment in
the world, but that if seasonal unemployment were more recognized, and
better controlled, then these cycles would not degenerate into the grave
danger and threat of a really fulminating depression.

He talked on and on, with all the enthusiasm of elaborately dressing
one's own brain-child. And it was a good idea; he knew that.

Fairbairn--his alert brown eyes shining with enthusiasm, his thatch of
white, heavy hair falling untidily over his brow as it always did when
he was excited over something, his shoulders hunched, his hands clasped
before him, his elbows on the arms of his chair--gave the details in his
crisp, complete way. Originally this tour of America had been arranged
for himself, but a crisis had arisen here in London with one of his
publications--his favourite one, the Economic Trend--and he had better
stay at home for the next month or so to control matters. If David were
going to work on seasonal unemployment he was certainly the man to send
as Fairbairn's eyes.

David sat quite silent. He was too dazed even to listen coherently.

Fairbairn halted his exposition to glance sharply at David's face.

"It is a wonderful opportunity for any young man," he said. "You will
have a chance to travel through all the States. You will be helped by
official sources. Your expenses will be paid by me in addition to your
salary, of course. And they will be paid on the American scale while you
are there.

That is only fair. Everything costs twice as much in America, and
British salaries cannot cope with that. I found that out when I
travelled there two years ago." He smiled at the memory, and paused,
waiting for David's response.

David forced a smile too. It was more than fair. It was a chance in a
thousand, the kind of dream that would have excited him as much as
Fairbairn, if only there hadn't been Penny. If only we could get
married, he thought.

If only  ... "How long do you expect this tour to last?" he asked
quietly.

"Probably about a year," Fairbairn said cheerfully. He looked as if he
expected David to share his enthusiasm. "America is a big place, you
know.

We often forget that. Even if you spent one week in each state and most
of them cover more ground than the British Isles that would take you
eleven months. The United States is not a country, rerhember: it is a
continent.

You will send me a monthly report of facts and figures. And I shall also
expect a weekly article for the Economic Trend. I want that written, of
course, in a more interesting way than the matter-of-fact reports, and
you don't have to confine yourself entirely in your articles to seasonal
unemployment. Anything that touches the social problems will be the sort
of thing I'll need for that page. You'll find it a varied and
interesting job."

A year, David was thinking. And after that? Probably there would be
always some other excuse in life to separate him from Penny. Some other
excuse to separate them for another six months, another three months,
another year.

His instinct told him to fight against this: it was the beginning of a
series of dragging separations stretching into a permanent one. For if
he were a good reporter Fairbairn would use him as that: he had been
talking only last week of the need to observe methods in European
countries, of the need to forget Britain was an island. Fairbairn was
thorough. Fairbairn was the man so interested in a job to be done that
he would drive his assistants with the tight, unrelenting purpose of a
general. No favours could be asked of Fairbairn.

"Well?" he was now saying.

David glanced at Chaundler's quiet, watchful face. Chaundler knew. He
was worried too.

"I must think about this, sir," David said haltingly.

Fairbairn stared uncomprehendingly at the young man.

"It is a chance in a thousand," he said, with a hint of rebuke in his
voice.

David flushed.

"Yes," he agreed unhappily.

Chaundler said, "First of all, you need a holiday, David." He looked
pointedly at Fairbairn, who nodded. David gave Walter Chaundler a look
of thanks. He was trying to buy David some time, some time to think over
the whole business.

"Yes, you need a couple of weeks or so," Fairbairn agreed. "But you
would have to sail by the middle of August."

David stared at the fallen cigarette ash on the carpet at his feet.

"Let me know by Saturday," Fairbairn said, with marked finality.

"If it is the responsibility of such a job that is worrying you, you can
put your mind at rest. I should never have suggested it if I had not
thought you would shape up very well in it." He began speaking of other
things, but there was just the touch of disappointed tolerance in his
whole manner. He had been so sure that David was the kind of man to
seize opportunity and to do well. Perhaps, of course, he did need a
holiday: he had been working hard, and he looked tired. And when you are
tired, Fairbairn thought, then you hesitate before new ideas.

Chaundler gave David a quick look of encouragement. He said quietly,
"Why don't you go to bed and nurse that cold of yours? It looks to me as
if flu were developing." "Oh, I'll be all right," David said.

"I suppose I'm more tired than I imagined." He roused himself to carry
on with the rest of the conversation.

David found a letter for Penny lying on the table of the dark hall in
Fitzroy Square. He lifted it. It was from Edinburgh he noticed, as he
climbed the stairs slowly. All his movements had become heavy. Yes, I am
tired, he thought. But what else could I expect, anyway? Another week of
that strain and I would have cracked up. We all would have.

He remembered the rows of white, serious faces bent over the examination
papers day after day. Outside the Examination School there was sunlight
and green trees. Inside there was the race against time, the scraping of
pens, the worried coughs, the shuffling feet, the rows of desks. The
judgment day.

The weighing in the balance, the found wanting. The sheep and the goats.

No matter how brilliant you had been in editing a magazine, in producing
a play, in contributing verse to anthologies; no matter how original you
had seemed with your decided tastes in clothes and food and
conversation; no matter how well you had played music or Rugby or at
politics in the Union, this was the day of rendered accounts. It was the
same test for all and the same lesson: first-rate brains without the
capacity to work would get you no farther than those who worked but had
second-rate brains.

It was the day of painful self-revelation, of regret for some, of hope
for others, of exhibitionism, of frustration, of submitting your inner
pride to the outside verdict.

David paused to rest his heavy suitcase on the first landing. Well, that
is all over anyway, he thought: the written papers, and then the oral,
and, at last, the posted list of successes and failures. All over, thank
God.

Another chunk of life put in a box, wrapped up and labelled "Past. Not
to be reopened. No second attempts." But a rare chunk in its way, for
other periods in life did not end so neatly, so completely, with an
examiner's clear mark to tie up all the loose ends. No wonder I feel
lightheaded, he thought. And this damned cold which keeps hanging
on--how did I get it, anyway? Too little sleep for weeks, a sudden drop
in temperature in the early morning while I was working at an open
window? His head at this moment seemed made of lead, and it was an
effort to lift each damned foot and place it on the next step. His shoes
seemed to be soled with east iron. Oh, hell, he thought, I'm just tired
and worried. That's all.

If I can get some rest I'll be all right in a couple of days. There had
not been much rest in these last days at Oxford. After the orals there
had been the packing up, the last removal, the payment of bills, the
farewells to be made, the summer plans for Margaret to be arranged.
Hell's bells, he thought, doesn't life ever become simple? One thing
over, and another begins.

He thrust the letter into his pocket and changed the suitcase to his
other hand. As he paused again for a moment on the top step of the long
staircase he admitted for the first time that this cold was worse than
he had realized. And the lunch-party in Chaundler's room had not exactly
been a cure. It was funny how anxiety could deal the last blow to your
health, could crumple it up as surely as any germ.

Then he called himself a bloody fool for even allowing himself to think
that; and he knocked at the door, and he was smiling as he heard her
clear voice saying, "David? Is that you?"

Her light heels ran to the door to open it. He forgot about Fairbairn
and America. He was only thinking how lovely she was, standing there at
the opened door, her face flushed, her eyes shining. He had no feeling
except the eternal one of surprise that she was always so much lovelier
than he had dreamed in his loneliness.

"Darling," she said. Her arms were tightly round him. He held her
closely, saying with the stupid inadequacy which attacked him when he
was emotionally upset, "Darling Penny, I love you." He kissed her neck
and her brow and her ear, and explained,

"I mustn't give you this cold. I'm full of germs." "I wouldn't mind,"
Penny said.

"If we share triumphs, then colds will be shared too. But you didn't
tell me in your letters that you had a cold." And then, seeing that he
didn't want to talk about it, she said, "Our celebration supper is all
ready. I cooked it in advance so that I wouldn't meet you all hot and
bothered." She tried to look not too proudly at the table. There was a
cold duck with orange salad, a Brie cheese beside a salad-bowl, a basket
of French bread covered with a napkin, strawberries piled on vine
leaves, and a bottle of Liebfraumilch.

"There's only the asparagus to drain and cover with butter," she said.
She smiled with delight at having timed everything so well.

"Oh, David, I am so happy!" She threw back her head and laughed with
pure joy.

"How wonderful to have won a victory. I feel like Caesar after a
successful campaign. No, you should be Caesar, and I'm the wife who
shares his triumphs. No, not Cassar: he was a bald headed old reprobate
with husbands hiding their wives from him whenever he entered a town.
Who was the victorious general who loved only one woman? Surely there
must be some? The trouble is you never hear about virtue, only about
vices."

David's smile broadened. He noted with pleasure, too, that his telegram
giving the results of Schools was displayed in the middle of the
mantelpiece.

The happiness and pride on Penny's face made him aware of his
achievement.

"I'll rush out and sit fifty more examinations he said, 'if you give me
a welcome like this when I get back." God, it was wonderful to
accomplish something, and then see your girl more triumphant than you
were. Her laughter, her gay remarks, her dancing steps done in a moment
of bursting joy, her excitement and happiness, were infectious. He
forgot his throbbing temples and the coldness of his body.

"Stop it, old girl," he said smilingly, 'or you'll give me a swelled
head." But he loved it, and then, like all men when they are enjoying
the height of their triumphs, he added diffidently, "It was nothing,
anyway."

"Of course," Penny said, with a laugh, 'nothing at all Absolutely
nothing!" She went out into the landing, saying that it would be a pity
to ruin the asparagus.

He remembered the letter which he had slipped into his pocket as he
climbed the stairs.

"I brought a letter up here for you. From Edinburgh," he called through
the open door. "Back-slanting writing, square-shaped, with elaborate
capital L's."

"That will be from Moira. Throw it on the mantelpiece, darling."

David placed the letter near his telegram, and went out into the hallway
where Penny was busy measuring coffee in the small alcove kitchen. He
lifted the dish of asparagus, which made a neat pyramid on the slices of
toast draining the last drops of water. He put his other arm round her
waist, hugging her as he said,

"This is what I needed," and made her lose count of the spoonfuls.

But at dinner, in spite of determined efforts, he could eat very little.
He hadn't eaten much lunch, either, but he had blamed that on
Pairbairn's conversation.

"Sorry, darling," he had to say at last.

"Everything is perfect. But I seem to be unable to----" He pushed back
the nauseating plate of food.

"This cold of mine----"

" David----" Penny began, half rising.

"No, don't!" he said sharply.

"There's no need for any fuss." He rose and crossed over to the
armchair, feeling the slowness of his movements.

"I'm just tired, that's all."

And he is ill. And he is worried. Penny thought.

"Sorry, Penny," he said, trying to keep his voice even.

"You see I am a bad-tempered blighter."

Penny resisted the impulse to follow him, to find out by talking what
was wrong. He was tired, he was ill, he was depressed. More depressed
than being tired or ill warranted. Something was wrong.

She looked down at the gay table now so forlorn.

"I think you are a very independent blighter," she said, in a low voice,
keeping her eyes fixed on the pattern of the tablecloth. Waterlilies.
Only half an hour ago, they had seemed enchanting with their cool white
crispness blocked on water-green linen. Something had gone wrong. But
what?

Something to do with me? But he loves me just as much as ever, she told
herself. And then she wasn't sure. Yes, he loved her--she had seen that
in his eyes when she had opened the door, but perhaps he did not want to
be tied to her. Now that he was a free man with a new world before him,
perhaps he resented subconsciously the ties that she represented. He was
an independent kind of man.

She knew that she was only letting herself express, at this moment, the
fear that had lain at the back of her mind in spite of her belief in
their love.

People could believe, but they could never feel absolutely sure; they
were always haunted by the fear that they would lose what they valued
most. The more they valued it, the greater the fear of losing it.

She said very quietly, "David, why don't you tell me whatever it is?

I'd rather know definitely than imagine things."

David leaned his head against the back of his chair. He took a deep
breath.

"Penny, I am not taking this' job with Fairbairn. I'll look for
something else."

She rose then, and came over to his chair, kneeling beside it.

He touched her hair.

"You don't seem very upset," he said, in surprise.

"Didn't you want me to get the job?"

"Yes. I'm relieved because I was jumping to quite wrong conclusions.

I thought you were depressed for another reason."

"What reason?"

"Us. After all, darling, you could have changed your mind about us.

Men do, they tell me."

"And damn their eyes, whoever they are." He stared at her incredulously.

"Good God, Penny. I can worry about you changing your mind about me, but
you don't have to worry that I ever shall. Just take one look in a
mirror.

Or reread the letters I sent you. Good God, Penny."

She kissed his hand, and then slipped hers into his grasp.

"Well," he said ruefully, 'that's a good lesson to me. I shall't spare
you any worries from now on, my girl. I'll pour them all out before you,
so that you can join me in worrying over the real thing and not over an
imaginary piece of foolishness. How would you like that?" "Very much,"
Penny said cheerfully.

"Besides, when we share worries they don't seem half so bad, just as
when we share good news it seems twice as good." Then she became
serious, watching his face thoughtfully.

"Why give up the job?" she asked gently.

"Because I don't want it."

She was worried now.

"But why? What do you really want to do, David?" she asked.

He didn't answer. So she imagined he was just being temperamental about
a career, uncertain of what he wanted to do? And then he grew angry with
himself over his bitter thought; his temper was on the short side
to-day. He hadn't told her why he was giving up the Fairbairn job. She
had every right to be worried about him. No girl would like the idea of
tying herself to an unstable man who changed his mind too often about
how he was to earn his daily bread. Bread didn't get earned that way.

"I am not being a prima donna," he said savagely, his voice still angry
from his own self-accusation. He paused, and his tone became more
gentle, but there was still intensity behind it.

"I'll take any job that gives me security and the chance to develop a
career I won't be ashamed of. I must have security. And I must feel that
whatever I accomplish to-day will be less than what I can accomplish ten
years from to-day. Not in power or in money particularly, but in
myself."

"Fairbairn offered that kind of job," Penny said. In the next moment she
regretted her too quick, too accurate reply as she saw the expression on
David's face.

"Well, darling," she added hastily, 'what job will you look for?" Jobs
were scarce: she had found that out for herself. It was said that no man
with a good Oxford degree was ever unemployed, but it might take a lot
of worry and heartbreak to prove that. She sat still, trying to hide her
unhappiness, and not succeeding very well. She managed a smile.

"Don't worry, darling." David said, "You know, Penny, you are taking
this rather well. Why don't you lecture me for the spineless chap you
must think I am?"

"But you aren't, David."

"You can't think that I am exactly a strong-minded character at this
moment.

Why don't you try to manage me, make me take the job for my own good
whether I wanted it or not?"

"If you don't want it, then it wouldn't be for your own good. And that
means it would be bad for me too. Besides, darling, I shouldn't dare try
to manage you. You do the managing in this household. Do you know a most
extraordinary thing? I rather enjoy it."

"If you make me believe that you've learned how to manage me
completely." He regarded her with a smile of pleasure. "Mrs. Bosworth,
as well as being in love with you, I have a great affection for you."

"Mr. Bosworth, my regard for you is only equalled by my constant
devotion."

They both laughed. Penny said, "Good. I've got a laugh out of you at
last. David, you do worry me when you don't laugh easily. You're tired.
You've got a rotten cold--oh yes, you have; that cough you are trying to
disguise is almost a graveyard one. And your eyes are--well, peculiar."

"Like the things you see staring up at you from the fishmonger's slab of
ice?"

"Almost. What you need is bed, aspirin, a hot toddy, and twelve hours of
solid sleep. How much sleep have you been getting?"

"Oh, enough." Sometimes five hours, occasionally six hours a night for
too many weeks. And that last night, before the orals, when he had had a
sudden attack of worry over the possible floaters in his written papers,
he hadn't been in bed at all. He had kept himself awake with potfuls of
coffee, and he had worked by the open window enjoying the cool breeze
after the hot mugginess of the day. That was the night he had caught
this cold, although he hated to admit it.

"It is only a summer cold," he said determinedly.

"Annoying things. Hang on and on." Penny said equally determinedly,
"Bed, David. Now. With aspirin and toddy."

"Look, darling, that's the wrong way to phrase that invitation.

Besides, I've got a job to think about, instead of sleeping myself dizzy
in bed. I have to wire Fairbairn by Saturday that I am not available. I
hadn't the brass neck to turn him down to-day. It is always easier to
wire a refusal."

"What did Fairbairn want you to do?" Penny asked quickly.

"To do some travelling, make a monthly report using lots of statistics
and facts, and write a weekly page for the Economic Trend."

"But you expected some travelling, didn't you? I thought your
headquarters were to be London, and that you would go on little jaunts
into the provinces.

That sounds fun. The report would be hard work, but the weekly article
would be a marvelous thing for you.

What is it you don't like, David? The travelling?"

"Not when it takes me three thousand miles away from you for a year,
perhaps longer. I bet it will actually take every week of fifteen
months, or I'm a Dutchman. Fairbairn wants facts. They take a long time
to gather accurately."

"Three thous---- Where are you to go?"

"America. For one year. At least one year." "Oh," Penny said slowly,
while her thoughts raced. There was a pause.

Then she said, "You must take this job, David." "I don't want it," he
said quickly, angrily.

Penny said quietly, "If we could have got married, then you would have
taken it?"

"Then we could have gone together. Fairbairn would have paid my
travelling expenses--American scale, too. We could have just managed it
financially, even allowing for Margaret."

And I could have let this flat to Marston, Penny thought. That money
would have balanced Margaret on their budget. She sighed.

"It would have been perfect," David said.

"Yes." She rose to her feet, and leaned over to kiss him. Then she moved
silently away to search for some aspirin in the bathroom. She was
searching for aspirin, thinking of fifteen months and no end to the
worry, thinking of jobs, what kind, what next, and what was she
searching for now? Her mind went blank, and she could neither remember
nor think at all. She gripped the cold edge of the washbasin, stared at
nothing, feeling nothing. Suddenly she came to life again, remembered
the aspirin, found the small bottle. She held it, looking at it, saying
aloud, "What shall we do now?"

Then she knew what she had to do.

She would wire Walter Chaundler: he would know where Fairbairn was to be
found. She would wire Chaundler telling him that David was ill and could
not send a telegram, but that he would accept the job in America.
Chaundler would understand the telegram's hidden meaning. He would help
her persuade David. For he knew, as she had just realized, that it was
too late now to refuse this job. And David knew too, even if he would
not admit it.

She bathed her face with cold water, powdered it carefully, and returned
to the room.

David was sitting as she had left him, his head leaning against the back
of the chair, his eyes fixed on the Utrillo reproduction above the
mantelpiece as if he could find some end to their troubles down that
silent street of quiet houses with their shutters drawn against the
midday sun. Penny began to fold the linen cover off the divan, to strip
the cushions and turn them into pillows.

David roused himself, and made the effort of rising. It seemed to take
his mind a long time to-night to tell his body to move. And his body
wasn't one piece, as he had imagined: he realized he was made up of
several parts, all of them in conflict at the moment. He knew then that
this was more than a cold.

"Look, darling," he said, 'if I am going to be ill I'd better catch the
first train back to Oxford. I probably should not have come here to-day.
Only I've had this day circled on my calendar for weeks, and----"

"I'm going out to buy some whisky and lemons for you," Penny said with a
smile.

"Get into bed quickly, won't you, darling? I want to see you there when
I get back."

"But----" David began without conviction, looking at the cool white
sheets.

That pillow was just the right invitation for a throbbing head.

"Darling, where could you go in Oxford? To hospital? Or to hospital
here?

Nonsense, darling. The sooner you are in bed the more quickly you'll be
cured." And hospitals cost money. All illness costs money.

"But all this trouble----" He was weakening in his protests: he didn't
want to talk, to argue; he only wanted to get into that bed and get to
sleep ... Penny smiled, shook her head, and picked up her handbag.

"Shall't be a minute," she said lightly, and left the room before he
could offer any more objections. Trouble  ...  how strange a man could
be.

Nothing was trouble if you loved him. If you were in love all the work
and worry in the world was no trouble at all. When women started
complaining about trouble they were already half out of love. She shook
her head in gentle amusement. Then, as she reached the front door she
was serious again, planning what was to be done. She opened her handbag
and counted the money in it. She looked at the coins in her hand.
Five-and-nine pence . all that was left of the pound note broken this
morning for to- night's dinner.

Mercury should have been the God of Money. She searched for the
emergency ten-shilling note which she kept tucked away in one of the
bag's pockets.

There was a moment of panic when she couldn't find it; and then she did.

That made fifteen-and-nine pence altogether: enough for whisky, and a
thermometer too.

She hurried into the Square, and turned towards Totten- ham Court Road.

Fortunately this was not a wealthy district, and shopkeepers in the
side-streets were apt to keep longer hours. The wine-and-spirits shops
would be closed, of course. But there was always the carrying-out
department in the local public-house. If my people could see me now, she
thought bitterly, what would shock them the more: David ill in my room,
or me visiting the jug-and-bottle department in a pub? It was easy for
them to criticize; they had whisky in the house as a matter of course,
and money for doctors and nurses and private nursing-homes. But what did
you do when you didn't have money for a doctor or a hospital? Quite
simple: you did everything yourself without outside help, just you and
your two bare hands.

Her hurried step broke into a swift run as if to match the urgency of
her thoughts.

Chapter Thirty-eight.

THE ROOFS OF LONDON.

David had fallen into an uneasy sleep marked by heavy breathing.

There was a dark flush on his face, and his hair lay damp on his brow.

Penny rose stiffly from the armchair which she had drawn over beside the
bed.

He was too restless. He was getting worse. This wasn't a cold, this was
something which could be, perhaps was now, much more serious. She had a
sudden attack of panic, standing there, looking down at him, her fears
refusing to be silenced any longer. She ought to have insisted on
calling a doctor; she should not have let David talk her out of it. And
now it was too late: it was midnight. She did not know of any doctor who
lived near here.

The one who had attended the girls at Baker House lived miles away. And
he was highly expensive. Hideous, she thought angrily, to be forced to
count the cost of being cured. David well again was worth more than all
the money in the world. But it was a case of logic, not of meanness.

Either you had money and could buy what you needed, or you hadn't, and
couldn't.

She stood there, looking down at him, trying to persuade herself that
this stage of illness was necessary: you didn't get better from flu
until it was sweated out of your system; you had to go through this high
fever. She felt the sheets. They were quite wet. That would never do.
She moved over to the bureau drawer where she kept the linen. There were
so few sheets there, really, if many changes were necessary. She laid
the fresh linen on the small table, now cleared of the abandoned
dinner-party, and stood still as she thought of what must be done in
what order. She felt almost too tired to arrange the details in her
mind, yet the long night had scarcely begun.

"Stop standing there!" she told herself angrily. She began unfolding the
sheets to have them ready for the quick change which would be necessary.
She searched David's suitcase for another pair of pyjamas, and found
them with two buttons, jagged and useless stumps, broken off by the
laundry. Blast them, she thought, and searched for two possible
substitutes in her sewing-box.

As she sat on the arm of a chair and sewed the buttons quickly and
securely in place she comforted herself by remembering all the things
she had managed to do this evening. Mostly telephone calls, but each had
meant a separate journey downstairs, for she had not wanted to leave
David too long alone.

She had 'phoned Bunny Eastman and told him she couldn't possibly come in
to the office to-morrow, and would he please post her weekly cheque to
her?

She had telephoned Lillian Marston, and found her in the middle of
excited packing.

"Darling, couldn't possibly see you to-night. I'm catching the boat
express from Victoria tomorrow at ten, and I haven't got a thing inside
the suitcases yet. To Paris and then to Barbizon, to stay at a little
inn and paint the forest and sky. Isn't it marvelous? Chris's idea. I
call it bribery and corruption. I'll probably end up by marrying him
after all." So Penny had said it was marvelous; and she did not mention
that David was ill.

Then she had telephoned two of her Slade friends, but they had already
left town. The long vacation was here, and every one she knew was
scrambling out of London, pitying those who were tied to it.

David's friends, too, were either scattered over the British Isles or
gone abroad. Chaundler was preparing to leave for Salzburg. Her
grandfather was giving an address to a group of medieval historians at
the Sorbonne.

She had telephoned Margaret Bosworth too. She was out at a theatre, so
Penny had left a message. There had been no reply to that message, but
when Penny had telephoned again, 5 nly twenty minutes ago, Margaret was
there. | "Oh," Margaret had said, when Penny had told her about David,
and then there was a pause.

"Could you come here to-morrow?" Penny had asked, swallowing her pride.

There was another pause. Tt is rather difficult. You see, I am leaving
for Sussex on the day after to-morrow, and I have so much to do."

"Oh," Penny had said.

"It is probably only a summer cold. I had a very bad one last week."
"Did you?" Penny had asked, and hung up the receiver. It was only now
that Penny, sewing on the last button, realized that Margaret had
possibly been tryi Otherwise she would never have spoken so n just have
said, "Oh!" in that noncommittal w what strange ways people had of being
polite Margaret had had a very bad cold too, ; absolutely nothing to
worry about.

I give up. Penny decided. I've tried to like up. Mother dislikes David,
Margaret dislikes r and Margaret developed a cordial dislike for < they
did meet. Yet David makes excuses for must be fond of her. And I defend
Mothe about her. How on earth, then, did David ar love?

She half smiled, and then, thinking of Mar^ cold voice, she stopped
smiling, and her fa< hard. What I resent most, she thought, is th
between us. As if I were opposition to her. t don't even compete with
her, the silly thir some women can be, going about with mart; as soon as
their son or brother thinks of takin of course, would have his usual
answer. But i woman he could have added a little footnote strange fact
that men who were drunks or g have to worry about any silver cord.

Penny snapped off the tight thread angi sewing-box on the mantelpiece.
She touche gram to straighten it. a first a job and yo always david. Her
face softened and be can How happy he had been when he had w turned
quickly away.

The letter from Ed usual blue deckle-edged envelope, was left lyii the
mantelpiece. She would read it when sb now there were too many things to
be done.

She heard David stir restlessly. He was 1 she still hesitated. The
danger of a chill, if was very great; the danger of lying between < even
worse. She knew so little about nursin: remembering how she had been
nursed wl Then suddenly she became decided. She cauj blanket which she
had laid in readiness ov went over to the bed. She shook David's firmly.

"David! Please get up. Help me, darling."

He shook his head dizzily, looked at her as if he did not recognize her,
raised himself on to one elbow, and then sank back on the pillow as if
he were falling asleep again.

"Come on, darling. Help me. David, help me." She raised him until he sat
up in bed, half wrapping the blanket round his shoulders. This time he
really was awake. He obeyed her urgent voice now, but when he rose to
walk to the armchair he seemed to be moving in some heavy dream.

"Help me, darling," she said, and the urgency in her voice roused him.
When he had changed his pyjamas she wrapped the blanket tightly round
him and sat him down gently in the chair. Then she turned to the bed,
stripping it quickly, changing the soaking linen, and as she stretched
the cool, fresh sheets smoothly in place she remembered the burning heat
of his body. At least, she thought, he will be able to rest more
comfortably now. But her worry increased as she helped him back to bed.
She bent and kissed his forehead as she tucked the bedclothes neatly
round him. It seemed to be on fire.

She wept then, silently, so that David would not hear her. She felt
lonely and afraid. She found she was kneeling beside the bed, burying
her face in the blanket. She was terrified of her loneliness, of her
fears.

That was just after midnight.

At two o'clock she again roused David, again changed the sodden linen.

And again she did all this when it was almost five o'clock, and the pale
light outside cast a cold look into the dreary room. This time David was
less dazed, smiled for her, watched contentedly, and said, "Dear Penny,
all this trouble----" before he fell asleep. This time, too, it was an
easier sleep; his brow felt more normal, his breathing was lighter.

She sat on the chair beside the bed, so that she could cover him with
the bedclothes whenever he threw, an arm outside of the covers, or when
he flung over on his side and exposed his back and shoulders.

But now, suddenly, his sleep was deep and peaceful, and all the wild
restlessness had gone. She relaxed in the chair, watching him as he lay
so quietly, folding her arms tightly to keep her body warm in her
flannel dressing-gown, for the morning had brought coolness to the room.

And then, as he still slept, sudden relief surged through her with the
biting sharpness of pain. She rose and walked to th' window, staring at
the grey-blue roof-tops. Their slopin slates rippled sea like as they
gleamed with dew under th early sunlight. The day promised well.
Loneliness vanishes with the cold shadows of the night.

"He won't die," she said, at last giving words to her fears: 'he won't
die now."

The doctor, grey-haired, thin, sharp-eyed, noncommittal, was preparing
to leave.

"Don't worry about him," he said, not unkindly.

"He stil has some fever, but really nothing to worry about now. Thesi
things go up and down, you know. All we have to do is t( keep an eye on
him. If he gets any worse again to-night yoi can call me, and I'll send
round a woman to help you. Sh( isn't a qualified nurse, but she is very
capable."

"It developed so suddenly," Penny explained.

"We thought i was only a bad cold, and then suddenly it was something
much worse. And I didn't know of any doctor until the care taker
downstairs gave me your address this morning. Thani you for coming so
quickly."

The doctor repressed a smile. He found her anxiety amusing, and a little
touching too. Newly married, he thought glancing at the heavy signet
ring on her left hand. Just wai until she had five children, two down
with mumps, anottiei with asthma, and the baby with croup.

Then she would know what a night's nursing was like. Still, she hadn't
donf a bad job. She had managed to stave off pneumonia. He; husband
would be all right now.

"You had better get some sleep," the doctor said, he wh( hadn't been to
bed all night himself.

"And let him sleep a; much as possible. You may not need to call me
again." Hi; patients weren't the kind who wanted repeated visits.

He paused at the top of the stairs, and said, "If you couli stop him
from worrying he will get better in no time. He is i healthy specimen,
you know." And then, as if he felt that hi had intruded too much into
some personal problem, he gavi a brief good-day and hurried downstairs.

David, who had been pretending to be asleep, opened hii eyes as she came
back into the room. He said, "If you don' get some sleep I shall start
some real worrying."

"I shall sleep. That's all arranged. Mrs. Lawson, the care taker, has
found a camp bed; one of her neighbours is lending it to her. I just
can't manage the two-chair technique, it seems --they slip and I slide.
Strange how kind people are when you are in difficulties. There has been
a sort of communal rallying round going on here, ever since Mrs. Lawson
sent the neighbour's small boy for the doctor. I gave Mrs. Lawson all
the food and wine which we didn't touch last night--in a roundabout way,
of course, so that her feelings wouldn't be hurt. And I've a length of
flowered material which will make some bright cushion-covers to cheer up
the neighbour's parlour.

She came up here with some broth for you when you were asleep, and
admired our curtains. And the small boy gets tuppence, which seems to be
the union rate for running errands in this neighbour hood Mrs. Lawson
said I was to give him no more than that. But I did give him the
chocolates you brought me. You don't mind, do you? His eyes went into
big circles! And he has been running so many errands for me all morning.
But to balance the box of chocolates, which he seems to have taken home
and shared round, his mother arrived with the bowl of broth. Strange,
isn't it?"

"Only because you have never lived with the poor. Penny. They'd never
survive if they didn't lend each other a helping hand."

Then he frowned, trying to remember what he knew must be remembered.

Tt is hell to be ill at this time," he said irritably. There was a job
to be found, a job to begin. And what kind of job now?

"Penny, would you send a telegram to Fairbairn for me? There's some
money in my pocket, and his address is in the small diary you'll find in
my jacket.

Get the boy with the big circles of eyes to take it to the post-office."

"Don't worry about that, darling. We've still a day to decide."

"I've decided already."

So have I, she thought sadly. The telegram had probably reached
Chaundler by this time. What else could have been done? Saturday was
to-morrow, and Fairbairn was Fairbairn. David could not change his
career a second time because of her. But she was glad that he had not
made that decision, that it had to come from her.

She smiled, gave him her hand obediently. He stretched himself lazily,
drowsily. If you had to be ill, he thought, it was good to be ill with
all this kind of care around you.

Dimly he remembered last night. I "You must love me a lot," he sa "And
you must love me a lot i of Fairbairn.

"Sleep and get better, She turned away quickly, and pre room.

The telegram from David had f mantelpiece. She picked it up, and the
envelope over in her hand, ar first time. The writing was not Me of
handwriting, but with more df "It's Mother," Penny said incredu the
envelope.

There was a single s David watched her face. It was v "Father is ill,"
she reported.

"He 1 his " great worries." She looked fault, of course, I suppose." She
p from her eyes and forced herself t( been to stop reading the letter
al tog Then David saw her whole fac again, young, incredulous, happy.

She held the letter out to him, t smile had changed to laughter, a 1,
tears.

But her happy eyes, her ha): news was good. She held out the 1 not
moving.

"The old brain is slow today," guess." There was a glimmering of
repressed it. Too many disappoint add another. Better repress all hop'
distance.

Penny," he said, with one c She came forward to him sayin They stared at
each other, still he caught her wrist and pulled her i let us get
married?" he asked increc " Yes, David, yes! Oh, darling, ca temperature
attack."

"And, by God, it couldn't be for temperature I'll enjoy having." He t
worry, old girl, nothing is going to *I know I'm a rotten nurse, bu
this," Penny said, and made him rebel, so perhaps he wasn't quite so
well as he had suddenly thought he was.

"How strange women can be," he said.

"So calm and practical."

"Calm?" She laughed then, unevenly, happily.

"Just wait until you are better, and you'll see how very un calm I am."
She covered his shoulders carefully, smoothed the top sheet under his
chin, turned the pillow round for coolness, and felt his brow.

"Well, nurse?" he asked, with a grin.

"Some more aspirin, darling. And a lot of sleep. And no more talking.

I don't want any more frights like the kind I had last night."

"Strange, I can't remember much about it except that you were there,
hazily, and that the bed seemed to have an oven going full blast
underneath it."

"No more frights, thank you," Penny repeated firmly, and placed a kiss
on each eyelid to close them.

They didn't stay closed.

"Darling. America. For both of us!"

"Yes, David."

"Send Fairbaim a telegram. His address is in my pocketbook in my jacket.

Tell him I'm ready to start any time."

"Yes, David." She smiled and added, "Get some sleep now."

"We'd better see about getting a marriage licence. It takes ages
sometimes, I believe. Get a quick one, darling. And I want at least one
week on dry land with you before we sail. I'm a rotten sailor. I want a
honeymoon on solid ground."

"Yes, David." Her smile told him to stop talking, to fall asleep, to get
well quickly.

She left him then, to-make sure of these things.

She sat outside on the top step of the staircase, her arms hugging
herself, her eyes looking at the black wall dipping down into the dark
house. She made herself think of all the things to be done, all the
practical things which must be done, and for once they seemed neither
too difficult nor exhausting. She wasn't even tired now.

I must write Grandfather at once, she thought.

"He must know that I am so happy," she said aloud. She laughed as her
voice startled her.

It was so happy.

She rose and went back to the room. David was asleep. She picked up her
mother's letter from where it had fallen on the floor beside him.

"We've managed it, David," she said softly.

"We've managed it. In spite of everything."

She went to the table and found her pen and some paper. She watched the
sunlight turning the blue tiles on the opposite rooms to shimmering
heat, and imagined Inchnamurren with the sun on the waters. If they had
time to travel there, that would be a wonderful place to spend David's
week on solid ground.

Inchnamurren . And, thinking of the island and its quiet loveliness, she
began to remember the summer day when she had met David there. She
smiled with the delight of remembering, but the wonder in her heart
grew.

"What is love?" she asked herself suddenly, and could find no answer
that was complete enough. Her smile lingered, giving warmth to her lips
and depths to her blue eyes.

"It just is, that's all," she said. She turned for a moment to look at
David.

Then she drew the sheet of paper in front of her, and began to write the
letter to her grandfather.

Chapter Thirty-nine.

BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY.

The wedding, in spite of Mrs. Lorrimer's dismay over its suddenness, its
simplicity, its lack of invitations and white satin, was an enormous
success. The bridegroom felt less sick with apprehension and nervousness
than the usual bridegroom is forced to feel; the bride was neither as
exhausted nor as short-tempered as the usual bride is forced to be.
Thsir only worry--each of them had it, concealed it from the other, and
then admitted it a week later with laughter--was that one of them would
be killed or injured in a traffic accident on their separate ways to the
ceremony, and that they would never really get each other after all.

Dr. MacLntyre, after giving away the bride, was host at the luncheon in
the Savoy. It was a small party, but a gay one in spite of Mrs.
Lorrimer's determinedly brave face.

At first she had said it was quite impossible to attend the wedding. And
then, just as David was secretly congratulating himself, she had decided
to come. She re-engaged a nurse for her husband, and spent a busy three
days organizing clothes for the occasion. She also found time to write a
great number of explanatory letters before she set out for London with
Moira and Betty. The one to Mattie Fane in Salzburg gave her a certain
amount of pleasure. ' ...  So very exciting  ...  leaving at once for
America .

Fairbairn, the economist  ...  most important mission  ...  such a lucky
girl, isn't she?" (This was a most successful letter, and quite spoiled
Mattie Fane's holiday. In addition, her guest, George Fentonstevens,
received a wire from David, and immediately said that he must leave for
London, 'to see old David through this." Even the fact that it was such
a hole-and-corner wedding gave Mattie Fane little comfort. ) But to
Moira, on the nervously gloomy journey to London, Mrs. Lorrimer voiced
her forbodings.

Imagine travelling to America, not having a settled home or anything;
Penelope must be quite mad. However, at the proper moment in London she
was sentimentally upset, and called Penelope

"My dear daughter," and wept with grace and even affection.

Margaret Bosworth made her dutiful appearance too. She said very little,
but watched every one acutely. The Lorrimers were a silly family, she
told herself, noting the new hats, remembering their new circumstances.

"David seems so ridiculously young to be married," she said to a tall
American called Burns, who had come back from Paris especially for the
wedding. Ridiculous too, she thought, that people had travelled so far
just to be here to-day: it made her own journey from Sussex, a frightful
nuisance, seem so very small and not half the sacrifice it really was.

Burns looked at David's sister in frank surprise.

"I wouldn't say that," he replied; "I'm all for it. Why, some of my
friends get married when they are still at college." "That's America, of
course," Margaret said coldly. She thought for a moment, and added,

"Besides, how can they afford it? Or are they all millionaires?"

Burns decided to ignore that crack. He smiled down at her and said
evenly, "Oh, they get along. If they can't, their families chip in.

Say, don't you like people getting married?" His tone was so easy and
friendly that Margaret, feeling she must prove that she did like
weddings, went on listening to him talking about America, although her
first impulse had been to walk away. Later, after the third glass of
champagne, she even became talkative herself. Burns listened politely,
agreed heartily at the right moments, until he felt sure that the thaw
had set in. He managed to draw Halsey and McLllwain adroitly into the
conversation, and eased away leaving the three of them discussing
Scriabin. Then he set out to do what he had wanted to do ever since he
had first seen Lillian Marston.

Lillian, slender (too thin, Moira decided), smartly dressed (too
dramatic, Mrs. Lorrimer thought), had arrived that morning from Paris.

"Simply had to be here," she said to Penny.

"Good Lord, haven't I nursed you through all the other stages?" As for
the holiday at Barbizon, she shrugged her shoulders.

"Thank Heaven I didn't marry Chris. I really don't approve of divorce,
you know. Find me another David, that's a good girl." She had been very
quiet and thoughtful all through the marriage ceremony, but she
recovered her old sparkle as the party left for the Savoy, and devoted
herself not to the men from Oxford ("I adored them when I was sixteen'),
but to Dr. MacLntyre and Edward Fairbairn. They found her charm not un
delightful "Perhaps," she said to Penny, "I am just an old man's
darling." There was a slight edge in her voice, so that Penny looked
quickly at her friend. But Lillian was smiling.

"Don't worry, my sweet," she said.

"I'm going back to Barbizon to-morrow. Chris is leaving this week, and
I'll devote the rest of the summer to My Art." She laughed then, and
suddenly kissed Penny lightly on the cheek.

"Have a wonderful life, darling," she said.

"I'll bring all my funny friends to visit you and David, to show them I
do know some really original people."

After that Penny had not much time to talk to Lillian again, but she did
notice that Bunny Eastman, who had chased Fair- bairn away, was in turn
ousted by Bill Burns. She remembered that Bill was also returning to
France to-morrow. What had he called David when he first met Penny? A
fast worker?

Bill Burns wasn't a slow one, either. Then Mr. Fairbairn came over to
talk to her, and she stopped thinking about Lillian.

Edward Fairbairn had been delighted by the wedding. Like all bachelors,
he was a great romantic at heart. As an economist he approved of early
marriage and young men who were men. He glanced bitterly at that fellow
Eastman, now talking so engagingly to Mrs. Lorrimer about Jacobean
embroidery.

That, Edward Fairbairn thought angrily, does not solve the problem of
the falling British birth-rate. He looked at the bride's charming face,
nodded approvingly to what she was saying, decided to double that cheque
which he would give them as a wedding present.

George Fenton-Stevens was enjoying himself as one should at a wedding.

Besides, accepting that invitation to Salzburg had been a grave mistake.
) He was taking all the credit for having arranged the meeting on
Inchnamurren.

And he had just managed to do some unobtrusive bribing, with results
that were most pleasant to contemplate as he stood so innocently here.
At this moment confetti and rice were being liberally disposed in all
the pockets of David's and Penny's travelling coats. An obliging
chauffeur was tying an assortment of cans, a boot, and a placard to the
rear of the car which David had hired to drive them so quietly to the
station. One of the chambermaids had sewn up all the pyjama legs with
large, strong stitches and frequent giggles. Every one was co-operating
beautifully. Nothing like a wedding to bring out the gay conspirator.

All in the day's sport.

George restrained a smile of triumph as he looked across the room at an
unsuspecting David, who thought he had hidden everything damned well
from practical jokers, and made easy conversation with Moira Lorrimer.
Not such a peach as Penny, and not such fun, but pretty enough and a
good listener. But as he talked to Moira Lorrimer he glanced over from
time to time at Lillian Marston and Bill Burns.

And, as if to prove something to Lillian, he made not one move towards
her and was as charming as possible to Moira.

Moira had never imagined she could possibly enjoy herself so much at her
younger sister's wedding. Still, she did have the very considerable
consolation of the diamond solitaire on her own left hand. (That was
Peter's--the son of the shipping Barries, not the brewing Barries. He
was nice: really very sweet. ) She would be married in a year's time,
and she would not have to teach after all.

She was really very happy. As she talked to George Fenton-Stevens she
would glance down at the ring, for after all it was only four days old.
It was a perfect stone, sparkling beautifully, set in platinum.

How strange Penny was: she never had liked platinum, said it was cold
and ugly, and people were silly to spend money on it just because it was
fashionable. Just as she hated chinchilla, and said that if it were
called rabbit no one would want to wear it. Yet Penny liked sables quite
frankly, and said they would be worth wearing even if they were called
rabbit and sold for five guineas.

How strange she was! Moira looked round the small party, thought it
didn't look like a real wedding at all, and began to enjoy herself
thoroughly.

Betty, sitting beside her grandfather and her mother, looked round at
the smiling faces and listened to the talking voices. She was waiting
impatiently for the end of the luncheon: that was when the strawberries
and cream were to be served. Penny had promised her that. Penny was
smiling across to her now. Golly, Penny did look pretty to-day in that
blue dress.

When I'm grown up, Betty thought, I'll wear a little flowered hat and
pearl earrings too. And lipstick. She looked at her mother. Yes, I will.
She looked once more at Penny. She let her eyes slide to David. He has
married my sister, she thought. Golly! For a minute she sat very still,
hardly breathing.

David looked up suddenly to find his new sister-in-law staring at him
with wide eyes. He smiled. Betty felt her cheeks turn scarlet, and she
turned her head quickly away, but not before she saw him glance down at
his watch again and give a little nod to Penny. Then they both rose very
quietly.

Grandfather had a laughing look on his face at something David was
saying to him. And every one was pushing chairs aside and rising and
going into the busy hotel lobby. Betty followed them. We'll miss the
ice-cream, she thought miserably. All this fuss--why, you didn't say
good-bye to people going away for a week on Inchnamurren!

When they returned again to the room the waiters were already standing
beside the serving table. I knew it, Betty told herself. The ice-cream
was almost all melted.

She looked round the table, but no one else seemed to notice. They were
all talking twice as loudly as before, and laughing about things that
didn't seem funny at all. Her grandfather was being very amused as he
told Mr. Fairbairn something that David had said to him. She listened.
Silly, she decided. No joke at all. She concentrated on spooning up the
liquid ice-cream.

David, alone with Penny in the locked compartment of the express to
Scotland (ticket-collectors were quick to spot a newly married man and
the tip he so unobtrusively offered), was remembering the incident too.

"You know," he said, "I had the feeling that your grandfather was highly
amused at the end. I spoke to him as we were coming away; thanked him
and all that. And I said," Well, that's all over, thank God. We've got
married, and there's nothing left to worry about." He looked at me very
quickly--you know that quick side-glance he gives--and his eyes were
twinkling, and I really had the feeling that he was trying very hard not
to laugh at me." David paused, tightening his grip on Penny's waist,
holding her left hand in his, looking down at the wedding ring.

"He must have been thinking about something else," Penny said, and
kissed David's cheek happily. She glanced up at the neat labels on the
suitcases in the rack. Mrs. David Bosworth. Mr. and Mrs. David Bosworth.

"There is nothing left to worry about now, is there?"

"Nothing," David agreed. The last ten days had been a nightmare of
arrangements, of things to be remembered, of things to be done. Yes,
everything was settled. Even Margaret. At that last moment in the Savoy,
amid the exciting warmth of friendly good wishes, she had even said,

"Have a marvelous time in America, David," as if she had really meant
it.

She had laughed when he had kissed her and knocked her hat all
sideways--it was one of those large black affairs, difficult to
negotiate--and suddenly she had looked ten years younger.

"Nothing left to worry about," he said firmly, and bent to kiss Penny's
lips.

She threw a nervous glance towards the carriage door.

"Locked," David said.

"Half a crown and a kind heart did it. No escape, my proud beauty. I
have you in my power."

"At last. You forgot to say "At last!" I was waiting for it, frankly,
the very moment the ticket-collector locked the door and pretended to be
looking down the platform at something more important."

David laughed.

"I did think of saying it," he admitted.

"And then.

Penny, I couldn't make a joke of it. I really felt that way too damned
badly."

"Well, say it now. I think I'd like the way you'd say it. I expect every
husband, even if cliches embarrass him, finds there is one time in his
life when he can turn to his wife'-- she paused, smiled, repeated firmly
*. wife, when he can turn to his wife, and all he can say is, "At last!"
Isn't there?"

David watched her vivid, laughing face. Under his serious eyes it became
serious too, desirable in its promise.

"At last," he said very quietly, and they kissed each other.