Still, she wished that she had not spoken to him like that. He would think she was just a Pill. He would probably tell other people that she was a Pill. Not that she cared what other people thought. Daddy always said that you could never be happy so long as you gave a damn what other people thought. But of course Daddy wasn’t a girl, and besides, he was always worrying about what somebody thought himself, so it didn’t count.

She was, she decided with some shame, much simpler than she had imagined. She was like the girls in Trollope; she wanted to be loved, and to love, and when these conditions were met, there was nothing she would not do. But she did not want to mess around with Roger, even though it might be fun while it was going on. She was, she decided after a depressing session with herself, inclined to be Pure. But she wanted it to be quite clear that she was Pure without being a Pill.

And imagine saying that she had looked up his income! Of course she had done so. He talked so much about money that she wanted to know how much he really had. It was the kind of thing girls did that girls should never admit to. But he had talked about marriage, and who wants to marry a girl of eighteen, unless she has money? Griselda was as sensitive on the subject of money as her father.

She was glad to be rid of Roger, but sorry that she had been nasty to him. Well, if that was the case, she would find an opportunity to show him that she was ready to be friendly, but not too friendly. Definitely not a mistress. On the contrary, a Trollope. Not a bad joke that. She would tell it to Freddy if the kid were not so utterly idiotic and likely to blab everything she knew out of sheer childish irresponsibility.

The opportunity came at the party after the dress rehearsal. Griselda was standing by the serving-table on the lawn, eating a plate of chow mein, while most of the company were at some distance, listening to the Cobbler family sing. Roger approached.

“Hello, Roger,” said she. “Have some of this. It’s good.”

“Thanks, I’ve eaten,” said he, in a tone which he believed to be one of distant politeness, but which was really rather surly. “I want a cup of coffee for The Torso. You’re still stuffing, I see.”

“Not still. Just. I’ve been hostessing. Roger?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t be cross about the Ball. I didn’t mean to be horrid.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Oh yes you do! I was a pig, and I’m sorry.”

“You mean you’ve changed your mind?”

“No, I don’t mean that. But I was a pious pig. Will you let me explain?”

“Certainly.”

“Let’s walk.”

“All right.”

“What about The Torso’s coffee?”

“Oh she’s probably forgotten she wanted it by now. Anyway, too much coffee isn’t good for her. I’ll drink it.”

They set off toward the lower lawn. Hector, watching from a distance, saw them pass into shadow, then into a patch of moonlight, and then into shadow again. How should he know that Griselda was industriously eating chow mein as she explained herself, somewhat incoherently, to Roger? He saw only that Roger had put his arm around her shoulders, and then they disappeared into shadow again, and he turned away, heartsick, toward the shrubbery. It was there that he narrowly escaped walking into Solly and Valentine, who at that moment were in each other’s arms. It was a bad night for Hector.

A bad night, and the latest of many such nights. Since the Ball he could think of nothing but Griselda, and of what he supposed to be her intrigue with Roger. He could not sleep. During the daytime he was supposed to be watching over pupils who were writing summer examinations, but he brought no vigilance to this task, in which he had once delighted. In former years he had kept up an incessant prowling in the examination room. Soft-footed, he had paced slowly up and down between the rows of desks, his eyes alert for talkers, peepers, cheats. But this year he had sat slumped at his desk, his eyes fixed on space, and examinees who wanted extra paper or ink were sometimes forced to snap their fingers three times before he took it to them.

His appetite had deserted him. Only habit took him to the Snak Shak at regular intervals; once there he ordered food, but he ate little of it. His skin sagged, and it seemed to him that his hair was turning white. In strict fact, grey hairs had been appearing at his temples for five years, but he had not noticed them or paid heed to them before. In these terrible days they appeared to him to be symbols of the conflict which was going on in his heart.

He loved Griselda, and it seemed to him that in that love there was no room for thought of himself. His longing for her was a pain which filled his whole body. And she was, he felt certain, the creature of that vile thing Tasset; he had persuaded her, by his villainous arts, to give her body to him. She was ruined. A soul so delicate as hers, once in contact with sin, would most certainly be shattered beyond any recovery.

At night he lay in his bed, his body rigid under the stress of the painful thoughts which would not be banished from his mind. She was a harlot. No, no! Not a harlot; not that lovely child, so new to the world and so fresh in her womanhood! She might still be reclaimed, and oh! how grateful she would be to the one who drew her back from the abyss of shame and threw the mantle of a great, understanding, world-defying love around her! After one of these bouts of self-torture, Hector would weep, and his YMCA bed creaked under the violence of his sobs. His mother’s early attempts to purge him had given him a horror of drugs, but under this stress he began to take aspirin tablets, sometimes two at a time, so reckless was he, and they helped him to get a little sleep.

It was curious that during this dreadful week, when Hector’s sufferings were real and intense, he found time to regret that he had not had a more literary education. His passions were too big for his vocabulary, and he could not put all that he felt into words, even to himself. As for planning and common sense, he saw them for the extremely limited servants that they were, and the foundations of his whole scheme of life were shaken.

He knew that he was wretchedly insufficient in the part of Gonzalo. He accepted the rather mild rebuke which Valentine gave him without rancour, and almost without hearing it. He was numbed by his pain, and all that he could do was to stand as much out of sight as possible, and watch Griselda. The sight of her eased his heart. But when she went off to the lower lawn with Roger, he turned into the shrubbery like a sick animal, to be alone. The sight of Solly and Valentine was bitter to him, but only as a blow on the back hurts a man who has been stabbed to the heart. He thought of the chow mein, or a cup of coffee, but suddenly all food was repugnant to him. He found a bench hidden among the fragrantly flowering shrubs, and sat upon it. From the lawn came the song of the Cobbler family, light and free on the summer air:

He broke into a cold sweat and a horrible nausea seized him. Not far away was Griselda, and Roger with her. What were they doing? He clung to the back of the bench, his eyes shut, retching horribly.

Hector slept not at all that night. As a general thing, when that expression is used, people mean that they slept five hours instead of their accustomed eight. But Hector went to bed at one o’clock and lay awake until seven, when he rose and tried to rouse himself with a shower. The pelting of cold water on his weary flesh brought him some refreshment of body, but none of mind. In his room he tried to beguile the time with a batch of examination papers. Mechanically he spotted errors; mechanically he wrote TOSASM when that comment was justified, but he was like a man with a mortal sickness, and no temporary distraction could make him forget Griselda. At last he rose and went to the Snak Shak, where he could take nothing but a glass of orange juice—a small glass, not the Mammoth Jumbo Special.