Monica, who had had no opportunity to recover from her nerve-storm, soon found the kitchen, took the hacked loaf—fetish for the hateful Persis—from the rubbish-pail, and began once more to make sandwiches. The capacity of the menagerie for food was boundless and she, true daughter of Ma Gall, had bought in ample viands. It soothed her to make sandwiches, and it kept her away from the others.

But she had not been long alone before Sir Benedict slipped quickly through the door.

“I’ll have a quiet drink out here with you,” said he. “I can’t convince your landlady that I don’t play the piano at parties.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” said Monica; “it was wonderful of you to rescue us, and terribly kind to ask her. She’s having a marvellous time.”

“I told her to persuade Revelstoke to improvise something,” said he. “A dirty trick, but self-preservation, and so forth. Have a drink. You look as if you needed one. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. We heard the broadcast.”

“What did you think?”

“I thought it was wonderful. But you know what my opinion is worth.”

“Don’t hedge. Did you like the work?”

“I don’t know. It’s awfully strange. Not as strange as lots of modern music; not so sort of repellent. It doesn’t fight the listener. But mystifying. I wish you’d tell me about it.”

“I’ve done so; I conducted it. It’s quite a solid piece of work, though I wish he’d study with a really first-rate man on composition for a while. He can’t completely say what he means, yet, in orchestral terms. Most of the instrumental writing is brilliant, but there are a few passages of awful muddle that I couldn’t persuade him to change. What he does best, of course, is write for the voice, and that lifts him above all but a few today. This isn’t an age when many composers seem to care about the voice; they want to use it in all sorts of queer ways, and often they do marvellous things, but it’s not really singing, you know. It’s abuse of the voice. But his stuff is wonderfully grateful to sing and that, combined with a modern musical idiom, gives it great individuality.”

“I suppose a lot depends on what the critics say?”

“A bit. Not too much, really. Far more depends on what chaps like me say.”

“Anyhow, he’ll be able to deal with the critics in Lantern.”

“That’s precisely what I’m afraid of. He wastes too much time on that nonsense.”

“Nonsense?”

“Yes. What’s the good of fighting critics? Mind you, some of them are very able, particularly when judging performances. But only a few can form any opinion of a new work. Most of them are simply on the lookout for novelty. They hear too much, and they hear it the wrong way. They get like children who are peevish from having too many toys; they are always tugging at the skirts of music, whining ‘Amuse me; give me something new.’ Giles hasn’t shown them anything particularly new. He’s not an innovator. But he has an extraordinary melodic gift. Now you just watch the critics and see how many of them are able to spot that.”

“You don’t think much of Lantern?”

“My dear girl, these little reviews and magazines of protest and coterie criticism come and go, and they don’t amount to a damn. They’re all right for what’s-his-name—Tuke and that formidable female bodyguard of his—but Revelstoke is a serious man; he ought to be at work on music. You’ve rather involved yourself with this Lantern thing, haven’t you?”

“I help a bit with the accounts.”

“Good enough. You’re what—twenty-two? It’s all right for you. Gives you a taste of that sort of thing, and we’re all the better for a taste. But Revelstoke is thirty-three. Time he was over all that, and down to serious work.”

“Do you think teaching is a waste of his time?”

“Not if it brings in money he needs. But this Lantern is just an expense of spirit in a waste of shame.”

“Shakespeare. Sonnet something-or-other.”

“Bright child. He’s making you do some reading.”

“Yes. And Lantern’s not the only waste.”

“You mean that gang in there? They’re no more a waste than any other pack of friends, I should say. Many fine things are written about friendship, and there’s a general superstition that everybody is capable of friendship, and gets it, like love. But lots of people never know love, except quite mildly; and most of them never know friendship, except in quite a superficial way. Terribly demanding thing, friendship. Most of us have to put up with acquaintanceship.”

It was flattering to Monica to be enjoying, for the first time, a conversation with Sir Benedict which was not about music, and which was not crowded by the press of his engagements. She fell into a trap; she tried to be impressive; she tried to be his age.

“But don’t you think people like that, who live such irregular lives, are terribly exhausting? I mean, they must drain away a lot of his vitality, which should be saved for music. I don’t want to gossip, but it’s common knowledge that he’s terribly taken up with that girl in there—the dark one—and I don’t know when he finds time to do any work. Do you think he ought to get off into the country, somewhere, and really slave at his music?”

“No; I don’t. When I was your age I might have thought so, but I know better now; you can’t write music just by getting away from people. Slavery is for the technicians, like you and me; we thrive under the lash. But creators must simply do what seems best to them. Some like solitude; some like a crowd. As for the girl, why not? When I was a student in Vienna my teacher told me how often he had seen old Brahms, when he was all sorts of ages, strolling meditatively home from the house of a certain lady who lived in the Weiden. Couldn’t matter less. Nothing, nothing whatever really stands in the way of a creative artist except lack of talent.”

“You don’t think a disorderly life matters?”

“Wouldn’t suit me. I couldn’t answer for anyone else.”

“Then you don’t think that Shakespeare was right—about the expense of spirit in a waste of shame?”

“It’s only shame when you feel it so. And he obviously doesn’t feel it. You are the one who feels it, and there can be only two explanations of that: either you’re more of a missionary than a musician, or else you’re jealous of that girl with the black hair and blue eyes.”

Monica turned back to her bread-cutting. She had never been much of a blusher, but she knew that her appearance had changed in many tell-tale ways.

“Am I right?” said Sir Benedict, taking a pull at his drink. “Well, falling in love with one’s master is recognized practice in the musical world. Even in his eighties I can remember old Garcia having to fight ‘em off, to protect his afternoon nap. Well, go ahead by all means. Anything to broaden your range of feeling.”

Monica turned toward him, and her expression was so angry, her eyes so brilliant, and the bread-knife in her hand so menacing, that Sir Benedict skipped backward.

“I hate you damned superior Englishmen!” said she. “Murtagh Molloy tells me I have no emotion; Giles Revelstoke treats me like the village idiot because I haven’t read everything that’s ever been written, and you tell me to fall in love because it will extend my range of feeling! To hell with you all! If I haven’t got your easy, splattering feelings I’m proud of it. I’ll throw this all up and go home. I won’t stay here and be treated like a parrot, and learn to say ‘Polly wants a cracker’ in just the right accent and with just the right shade of feeling! I hate the whole pack of you, and I hate your rotten little Ye Olde Antique Shoppe of a country. I’d rather go home and be a typist in the Glue Works than take your dirt for another day.”

Sir Benedict looked thoughtfully at her for a full minute, then he said: “You’re perfectly right, my dear, and I apologize.” Monica made a dreadful face, snorted painfully, and burst into tears. She had never been a pretty weeper.