During the first tumultuous afternoon and evening in Bellacita there had been little opportunity for more than the barest acquaintance between Scott-King and his fellow guests of the Bellorius Association. Indeed he had scarcely distinguished them from their hosts. They had bowed and shaken hands, they had exchanged nods among the University archives, they had apologized one to the other as they jostled and jogged elbows at the vin d’honneur; Scott-King had no share in whatever intimacies flourished after the banquet. He remembered an affable American and a Swiss of extreme hauteur and an Oriental whom on general principles he assumed to be Chinese. Now on the morning following he came cheerfully to join them in the Ritz foyer in accordance with the printed programme. They were to leave at 10.30 for Simona. His bags were packed; the sun, not yet oppressive, shone brilliantly through the glass dome. He was in the best of tempers.

He had awoken in this rare mood after a night of untroubled sleep. He had breakfasted on a tray of fruit, sitting on his verandah above the square, showering copious blessings on the palms and fountains and trams and patriotic statuary. He approached the group in the foyer with the intention of making himself peculiarly agreeable.

Of the festive Neutralians of the day before only Dr. Fe and the Poet remained. The rest were at work elsewhere constructing the New Neutralia.

“Professor Scott-King, how are you this morning?”

There was more than politeness in Dr. Fe’s greeting; there was definite solicitude.

“Extremely well, thank you. Oh, of course, I had forgotten about last night’s speech. I was very sorry to fail you; the truth was…”

“Professor Scott-King, say no more. Your friend Whitemaid I fear is not so well.”

“No?”

“No. He has sent word that he cannot join us.” Dr. Fe raised exquisitely expressive eyebrows.

The Poet drew Scott-King momentarily aside. “Do not be alarmed,” he said. “Reassure your friend. Not a hint of last night’s occurrences shall appear. I speak with the authority of the Ministry.”

“You know I’m completely in the dark.”

“So are the public. So they shall remain. You sometimes laugh at us in your democratic way for our little crowds, but they have their uses, you see.”

“But I don’t know what has happened.”

“So far as the press of Neutralia is concerned, nothing happened.”

The Poet had shaved that morning and shaved ruthlessly. The face he thrust near Scott-King’s was tufted with cotton-wool. Now he withdrew it and edged away. Scott-King joined the group of delegates.

“Well,” said Miss Bombaum, “I seem to have missed a whole packet of fun last night.”

“I seem to have missed it too.”

“And how’s the head this morning?” asked the American scholar.

“Seems like you had fun,” said Miss Bombaum.

“I went to bed early,” said Scott-King coldly. “I was thoroughly over-tired.”

“Well, I’ve heard it called plenty of things in my time. I reckon that covers it too.”

Scott-King was an adult, an intellectual, a classical scholar, almost a poet; provident Nature who shields the slow tortoise and points the quills of the porcupine, has given to such tender spirits their appropriate armour. A shutter, an iron curtain, fell between Scott-King and these two jokers. He turned to the rest of the company and realized too late that jocularity was the least he had to fear. The Swiss had not been cordial the day before; this morning he was theatrical in his coldness; the Asiatic seemed to have spun himself a cocoon of silken aloofness. The assembled scholars did not positively cut Scott-King; in their several national fashions they signified that they were not unaware of Scott-King’s presence amongst them. Further than this they did not go. They too had their shutters, their iron curtains. Scott-King was in disgrace. Something unmentionable had happened in which he was vicariously but inextricably implicated; a gross, black, inexpungible blot had fallen on Scott-King overnight.

He did not wish to know more. He was an adult, an intellectual; he was all that has already been predicated of him. He was no chauvinist. Throughout six embattled years he had remained resolutely impartial. But now his hackles rose; quite literally he felt the roots of his sparse hairs prick and tingle. Like the immortal private of the Buffs he stood in Elgin’s place; not untaught certainly, nor rude, nor abysmally low-born, but poor and, at the moment, reckless, bewildered and alone, a heart with English instinct fraught he yet could call his own.

“I may have to keep the party waiting a few minutes,” he said. “I must go and call on my colleague Mr. Whitemaid.”

He found him in bed looking strange rather than ill; almost exalted. He was still rather drunk. The windows stood wide open on to the balcony and on the balcony, modestly robed in bath towels, sat Miss Sveningen eating beefsteak.

“They tell me downstairs that you are not coming with us to Simona?”

“No. I’m not quite up to it this morning. I have things to attend to here. It is not easy for me to explain.” He nodded towards the giant carnivore on the balcony.

“You spent an agreeable evening?”

“A total blank, Scott-King. I remember being with you at some kind of civic reception. I remember a fracas with the police, but that was much later. Hours must have intervened.”

“The police?”

“Yes. At some kind of dancing place. Irma here was splendid—like something in a film. They went down like nine-pins. But for her I suppose I should be in a cell at this moment instead of happily consuming Bromo-Seltzer in your company.”

“You made a speech.”

“So I gather. You missed it? Then we shall never know what I said. Irma in her blunt way described it as long and impassioned but incomprehensible.”

“Was it about Bellorius?”

“I rather suppose not. Love was uppermost in my mind, I think. To tell you the truth I have lost my interest in Bellorius. It was never strong. It wilted and died this morning when I learned that Irma was not of us. She has come for the Physical Training Congress.”

“I shall miss you.”

“Stay with us for the gymnastics.”

For a second Scott-King hesitated. The future at Simona was obscure and rather threatening.

“There are to be five hundred female athletes. Contortionists perhaps from the Indies.”

“No,” said Scott-King at length firmly. “I must keep faith with Bellorius.”

And he returned to the delegates who now sat impatiently in a charabanc at the doors of the Ritz.

The town of Simona stands within sight of the Mediterranean Sea on the foothills of the great massif which fills half the map of Neutralia. Groves of walnut and cork-oak, little orchards of almond and lemon, cover the surrounding country and grow to the foot of the walls which jut out among them in a series of sharp bastions, ingeniously contrived in the seventeenth century and never, in a long history of strife, put to the test of assault; for they enclose little of military significance. The medieval university, the baroque cathedral, twenty churches in whose delicate limestone belfries the storks build and multiply, a rococo square, two or three tiny shabby palaces, a market and a street of shops are all that can be found there and all that the heart of man can properly desire. The railway runs well clear of the town and betrays its presence only by rare puffs of white smoke among the treetops.

At the hour of the angelus Scott-King sat with Dr. Bogdan Antonic at a café table on the ramparts.

“I suppose Bellorius must have looked out on almost precisely the same prospect as we see today.”

“Yes, the buildings at least do not change. There is still the illusion of peace while, as in Bellorius’s time, the hills behind us are a nest of brigands.”