‘I must absolutely have a drink,’ he thought. The Club seemed possible again now, even inviting, and he made towards it. ‘“Farewell, Piccadilly! Good-bye, Leicester Square!”’ Marvellous that scene, where those Tommies marched up in a spiral through the dark mist, whistling; while in the lighted front of the stage three painted girls rattled out: ‘“We don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go.”’ And from the boxes on the stage at the sides people looked down and clapped! The whole thing there! The gaiety on those girls’ painted faces getting more and more put-on and heart-breaking! He must go again with Clare! Would it move her? And suddenly he perceived that he didn’t know. What did one know about anyone, even the woman one loved? His cigarette was scorching his lip, and he spat out the butt. That scene with the honeymooning couple leaning over the side of the Titantic, everything before them, and nothing before them but the cold deep sea! Did that couple know anything except that they desired each other? Life was damned queer, when you thought about it! He turned up the Coffee House steps, feeling as if he had lived long since he went down them…

It was just six o’clock when he rang the bell at Mount Street on the following day.

A butler, with slightly raised eyebrows, opened the door.

“Is Sir Lawrence Mont at home?”

“No, sir. Lady Mont is in, sir.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know Lady Mont. I wonder if I could see Lady Corven for a moment?”

One of the butler’s eyebrows rose still higher. ‘Ah!’ he seemed to be thinking.

“If you’ll give me your name, sir.”

Young Croom produced a card.

“‘Mr. James Bernard Croom,’” chanted the butler.

“Mr. Tony Croom, tell her, please.”

“Quite! If you’ll wait in here a moment. Oh! here is Lady Corven.”

A voice from the stairs said:

“Tony? What punctuality! Come up and meet my Aunt.”

She was leaning over the stair-rail, and the butler had disappeared.

“Put your hat down. How can you go about without a coat? I shiver all the time.”

Young Croom came close below her.

“Darling!” he murmured.

She placed one finger to her lips, then stretched it down to him, so that he could just reach it with his own.

“Come along!” She had opened a door when he reached the top, and was saying: “This is a shipmate, Aunt Em. He’s come to see Uncle Lawrence. Mr. Croom, my Aunt, Lady Mont.”

Young Croom was aware of a presence slightly swaying towards him. A voice said: “Ah! Ships! Of course! How d’you do?”

Young Croom, aware that he had been ‘placed,’ saw Clare regarding him with a slightly mocking smile. If only they could be alone five minutes, he would kiss that smile off her face! He would—!

“Tell me about Ceylon, Mr. Craven.”

“Croom, Auntie. Tony Croom. Better call him Tony. It isn’t his name, but everybody does.”

“Tony! Always heroes. I don’t know why.”

“This Tony is quite ordinary.”

“Ceylon. Did you know her there, Mr.—Tony?”

“No. We only met on the ship.”

“Ah! Lawrence and I used to sleep on deck. That was in the ‘naughty nineties.’ The river here used to be full of punts, I remember.”

“It still is, Aunt Em.”

Young Croom had a sudden vision of Clare and himself in a punt up a quiet backwater. He roused himself and said:

“I went to Cavalcade last night. Great!”

“Ah!” said Lady Mont. “That reminds me.” She left the room.

Young Croom sprang up.

“Tony! Behave!”

“But surely that’s what she went for!”

“Aunt Em is extraordinarily kind, and I’m not going to abuse her kindness.”

“But, Clare, you don’t know what—”

“Yes, I do. Sit down again.”

Young Croom obeyed.

“Now listen, Tony! I’ve had enough physiology to last me a long time. If you and I are going to be pals, it’s got to be platonic.”

“Oh, God!” said young Croom.

“But it’s got to; or else—we simply aren’t going to see each other.”

Young Croom sat very still with his eyes fixed on hers, and there passed through her the thought: ‘It’s going to torture him. He looks too nice for that. I don’t believe we ought to see each other.’

“Look!” she said, gently, “you want to help me, don’t you? There’s lots of time, you know. Some day—perhaps.”

Young Croom grasped the arms of his chair. His eyes had a look of pain.

“Very well,” he said slowly, “anything so long as I can see you. I’ll wait till it means something more than physiology to you.”

Clare sat examining the glacé toe of her slowly wiggling shoe; suddenly she looked straight into his brooding eyes.

“If,” she said, “I had not been married, you would wait cheerfully and it wouldn’t hurt you. Think of me like that.”

“Unfortunately I can’t. Who could?”

“I see. I am fruit, not blossom—tainted by physiology.”

“Don’t! Oh! Clare, I will be anything you want to you. And if I’m not always as cheery as a bird, forgive me.”

She looked at him through her eyelashes and said: “Good!”

Then came silence, during which she was conscious that he was fixing her in his mind from her shingled dark head to her glacé kid toe. She had not lived with Jerry Corven without having been made conscious of every detail of her body. She could not help its grace or its provocation. She did not want to torture him, but she could not find it unpleasant that she did. Queer how one could be sorry and yet pleased, and, withal, sceptical and a little bitter. Give yourself, and after a few months how much would he want you! She said abruptly:

“Well, I’ve found rooms—a quaint little hole—used to be an antique shop, in a disused mews.”

He said eagerly: “Sounds jolly. When are you going in?”

“Next week.”

“Can I help?”

“If you can distemper walls.”

“Rather! I did all my bungalow in Ceylon, two or three times over.”

“We should have to work in the evenings, because of my job.”

“What about your boss? Is he decent?”

“Very, and in love with my sister. At least, I think so.”

“Oh!” said young Croom dubiously.

Clare smiled. He was so obviously thinking: ‘Could a man be that when he sees YOU every day?’

“When can I come first?”

“To-morrow evening, if you like. It’s 2, Melton Mews, off Malmesbury Square. I’ll get the stuff in the morning, and we’ll begin upstairs. Say six-thirty.”

“Splendid!”

“Only, Tony—no importunities. ‘Life is real, life is earnest.’”

Grinning ruefully, he put his hand on his heart.

“And you must go now. I’ll take you down and see if my Uncle’s come in.”

Young Croom stood up.

“What is happening about Ceylon?” he said, abruptly. “Are you being worried?”

Clare shrugged. “Nothing is happening so far.”

“That can’t possibly last. Have you thought things out?”

“Thinking won’t help me. It’s quite likely he’ll do nothing.”

“I can’t bear your being—” he stopped.

“Come along,” said Clare, and led the way downstairs.

“I don’t think I’ll try to see your Uncle,” said young Croom. “To-morrow at half-past six, then.” He raised her hand to his lips, and marched to the door. There he turned. She was standing with her head a little on one side, smiling. He went out, distracted.

A young man, suddenly awakened amid the doves of Cytherea, conscious for the first time of the mysterious magnetism which radiates from what the vulgar call ‘a grass widow,’ and withheld from her by scruples or convention, is to be pitied. He has not sought his fate. It comes on him by stealth, bereaving him ruthlessly of all other interest in life. It is an obsession replacing normal tastes with a rapturous aching. Maxims such as ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife,’ ‘Blessed are the pure in heart,’ become singularly academic. Young Croom had been brought up to the tinkling of the school bell: ‘Play the game!’ He now perceived its strange inadequacy. What WAS the game? Here was she, young and lovely, fleeing from a partner seventeen years older than herself, because he was a brute; she hadn’t said so, but of course he must be! Here was himself, desperately in love with her, and liked by her—not in the same way, but still as much as could be expected! And nothing to come of it but tea together! There was a kind of sacrilege in such waste.