“To wake me? How often have I repeated to myself that most futile of all phrases ‘If only it was a dream.’ ‘If only I could be certain, certain. Then it would not be so bad.”

Mandrake thought: “He is going to talk to me.” He took the chair opposite to Dr. Hart and lit a cigarette. “If only you could be certain?” he repeated.

“That it is all lies, that he is her lover, that she has betrayed me. But when she denies I cannot help half believing her. I wish so much to believe. And then I see a look of boredom in her eyes, a look of weariness, of contempt. And with that comes the memory of the glances I have surprised between them, and although I know that with each denial, each scene, I injure myself still further, immediately I begin to make new scenes, demand fresh denials. I am caught in the toils of hell. I am so weary of it, yet I cannot be done with it.”

“Why did you come here?”

“To prove to myself, one way or the other. To know the worst. She told me he was to be here and said quite lightly: ‘Watch us and find out. It is nothing.’ And then when I saw him, with all the airs of proprietorship, of complacent ownership, laughing at me! Do you know what should have been done in my country, if anyone insulted me as this man has insulted me? We should have met and it would have been decided once and for all. I should have killed Nicholas Compline.”

“In England,” said Mandrake, “we find it difficult to believe that in other countries duelling is still regarded as a satisfactory means of settling a difference. A successful duellist would be regarded as a murderer.”

“In any case,” said Hart, “he would not consent. He is a poltroon as well as a popinjay.”

Mandrake thought: “Such glorious words!” Aloud he said: “He has some cause to be nervous, don’t you think?”

“Yet in spite of his terror,” Hart continued, beating his clenched hands against his forehead, “in spite of his terror, he goes to her room. He waits until he hears me in the bathroom and then he goes to her. This morning he was in her room. I trapped her into admitting it. And now, a few minutes after she leaves me, after she has seen my agony, she keeps another assignation.”

“But you know, in this country we are not conventional. I mean, we wander about into each other’s room. I mean, Chloris Wynne and Lady Hersey, for example, both came and saw me. One thinks nothing of it. The modern Englishwoman…”

“In these matters she is not an Englishwoman, and I, Mr. Mandrake, am not an Englishman. We are naturalized, but we do not change our ideas of what is convenable. For what reason should she admit him, for what innocent reason? No, it is useless to torture myself further. She has betrayed me.”

“Look here, it’s none of my business but, if you are so certain, why not make a clean break? Why take a course that must lead to disaster? Let them go their ways. Things can never be as they were. Why ruin your career,”—Mandrake stammered over his series of conventional phrases, — ”and jeopardize your own life over Nicholas Compline? Is he worth it? And, after all, is she worth it? Let her go. You could never be happy with her, now. Even if she married you—”

“Married me!” cried Hart. “Married me! She has been my wife for five years.”

Mandrake stayed with Hart for a time, hearing a story in which the themes of Madame Lisse’s business instinct, her husband’s enslavement, and Nicholas Compline’s perfidy were strangely interwoven. Madame, it seemed, had decided that their respective professions, though allied, were in a public sense incompatible. “She felt that as my wife she could not recommend me to her clients. I have always expressed considerable scepticism about the efficacy of face massage and creams. I have even published a short treatise on the subject. She said that to announce our marriage would be to embarrass my prestige with my clientele.” His voice went on and on in a breathless hurry. He seemed unable to stop. Always he returned to Nicholas Compline and with each return he rekindled his own fury against Nicholas. The sudden outpouring of a long-suppressed emotion is supposed to bring relief, but Dr. Hart did not appear to take comfort from his self-revelation. He looked wretchedly ill and his nervous distress mounted with his recital. “He really is not responsible,” Mandrake thought; “I’ve done no good at all. I’d better clear out.” He could think of no suitable speech with which to end the conversation. Ridiculous phrases occurred to him (“Now, you won’t kill Nicholas, will you?”) and he wished with all his heart that he could rid himself of the notion that in some way Dr. Hart was making an appeal to him. He pulled himself to his feet. Dr. Hart, his finger pressed against that twitching lip of his, looked up desolately. At that moment, beyond the communicating door into the smoking-room, Nicholas Compline uttered a laugh loud enough to reach the ears of Dr. Hart and Mandrake. Hart sprang to his feet and for a moment Mandrake thought that he would actually make a blackguard rush into the smoking-room and go for his tormentor. Mandrake grabbed at his arm. They heard Nicholas’ voice say “All right” so clearly that he must have crossed the room. There was a discordant burst of static and distorted music from the wireless, just inside the door. Hart cried out for all the world as if he had been struck, tore himself away from Mandrake and flung open the door into the smoking-room.

“GOTT IM HIMMEL,” he screamed out, “must I be tortured by that devilish, that intolerable noise? TURN IT OFF. I INSIST THAT YOU TURN IT OFF!”

Nicholas appeared in the doorway. “You go to hell,” he said pleasantly. “If I choose to listen to the wireless I’ll bloody well listen to it.” He slammed the door in Hart’s face. Mandrake stumbled between Hart and the door. With a string of expletives that rather astonished himself, he shouted out instructions to Nicholas to switch off the radio, which was now roaring “Roll out the barrel…” It stopped abruptly, and William was heard to say: “Pipe down, for God’s sake.” Nicholas said: “Oh all right. Go to bed, Bill.” Mandrake and Hart stared at each other for some seconds without speaking.

“Dr. Hart,” said Mandrake, at last, “if you cannot give me your assurance that you will either go to your own room or remain in this one, I shall — I shall lock you in.”

Hart sank back into his chair. “I shall do nothing,” he said. “What can I do?” And to Mandrake’s unbounded dismay he uttered a loud sob and buried his face in his hands.

“Oh, God!” thought Mandrake, “this is too much.” He tried to form soothing phrases, but was dismayed by their inadequacy and finally ran out of words. For a moment he watched Dr. Hart, who was now fetching his breath in shuddering gasps and beating his hands on the arms of his chair. Mandrake remembered Jonathan’s treatment for Chloris. He went to the dining-room, found a decanter of whiskey, poured out a stiff nip, and returned with it to the boudoir.

“Try this,” he said. Hart motioned to him to leave it beside him. Seeing he could do no more, Mandrake prepared to leave. As an afterthought he turned at the door. “May I give you one word of advice?” he said. “Keep clear of both the Complines.” And he limped away to the library.

Here he found Jonathan with Hersey Amblington and Chloris. It seemed quite natural to Mandrake to go at once to Chloris and sit on the arm of her chair, it seemed enchantingly natural that she should look up at him with pleasure.

“Well,” she said, “any good?”

“None. He’s in an awful state. What about the brothers Compline? We could hear snatches of their crosstalk act in there.”

“Lady Hersey’s been in to see them.”

“And I may say,” said Hersey, “that I got a surprise. Nick’s pulled himself together, it seems, and is doing his best to let a little sense into poor old William.”