"I know it isn't reasonable. It's even absurd. But neither of us would be happy and the evening would be a disappointment and you don't want that to happen? Couldn't you have us tomorrow night instead?"
"No, I'm catching a train directly the evening performance is over. And of course, it being Saturday, I have a matinee. And anyhow, I'm playing Romeo at night and that wouldn't please Cath at all. It takes her all her time to stand me in Richard III. Oh dear, the whole thing is absurd."
"Cheer up," Lucy said. "It stops short of tragedy. You will be coming to Larborough again, and you can meet as often as you like now that you know she is here."
"I shall never get Catherine in that pliant mood again. Never. It was partly your doing, you know. She didn't want to appear too much of a Gorgon in front of you. She was even going to come to see me act. Something she has never done before. I'll never get her back to that point if she doesn't come tonight. Do persuade her, Miss Pym."
Lucy promised to try. "How are you enjoying your afternoon, apart from broken appointments?"
Mr Adrian was enjoying himself vastly, it appeared. He was not sure which to admire most: the students' good looks or their efficiency.
"They have charming manners, too. I have not been asked for an autograph once, all the afternoon."
Lucy looked to see if he was being ironic. But no; the remark was "straight." He really could not conceive any reason for the lack of autograph hunters other than that of good manners. Poor silly baby, she thought, walking all his life through a world he knew nothing about. She wondered if all actors were like that. Perambulating spheres of atmosphere with a little actor safely cocooned at the heart of each. How nice it must be, so cushioned and safe from harsh reality. They weren't really born at all; they were still floating in some pre-natal fluid.
"Who is the girl who fluffed at the balance exercise?"
Was she not going to get away from Innes for two minutes together?
"Her name is Mary Innes. Why?"
"What a wonderful face. Pure Borgia."
"Oh, no!" Lucy said, sharply.
"I've been wondering all the afternoon what she reminded me of. I think it is a portrait of a young man by Giorgione, but which of his young men I wouldn't know. I should have to see them again. Anyhow, it's a wonderful face, so delicate and so strong, so good and so bad. Quite fantastically beautiful. I can't imagine what anything so dramatic is doing at a girls' Physical Training College in the twentieth century."
Well, at least she had the consolation of knowing that someone else saw Innes as she did; exceptional, oddly fine, out of her century, and potentially tragic. She remembered that to Henrietta she was merely a tiresome girl who looked down her nose at people less well endowed with brains.
Lucy wondered what to offer Edward Adrian by way of distraction. She saw coming down the path a floppy satin bow-tie against a dazzling collar and recognized Mr Robb, the elocution master; the only member of the visiting Staff, apart from Dr Knight, that she knew. Mr Robb had been a dashing young actor forty years ago-the most brilliant Lancelot Gobbo of his generation, one understood- and she felt that to hoist Mr Adrian with his own petard would be rather pleasant. But being Lucy her heart softened at the thought of the wasted preparations he had made-the flowers, the cake, the plans for showing off-and she decided to be merciful. She saw O'Donnell, gazing from a discreet distance at her one-time hero, and she beckoned to her. Edward Adrian should have a real, authentic, dyed-in-the-wool fan to cheer him; and he need never know that she was the only one in College.
"Mr Adrian," she said, "this is Eileen O'Donnell, one of your most devoted admirers."
"Oh, Mr Adrian-" she heard O'Donnell begin.
And she left them to it.
19
When tea was over (and Lucy had been introduced to at least twenty different sets of parents) the drift back from the garden began, and Lucy overtook Miss Lux on the way to the house.
"I'm afraid that I am going to cry off tonight," she said. "I feel a migraine coming."
"That is a pity," Lux said without emotion. "I have cried off too."
"Oh, why?"
"I'm very tired, and upset about Rouse, and I don't feel like going junketing in town."
"You surprise me."
"I surprise you? In what way?"
"I never thought I should live to see Catherine Lux being dishonest with herself."
"Oh. And what am I fooling myself about?"
"If you have a look at your mind you'll find that that's not why you're staying at home."
"No? Why, then?"
"Because you get such pleasure out of telling Edward Adrian where he gets off."
"A deplorable expression."
"Descriptive, though. You simply jumped at the chance of being high and mighty with him, didn't you?"
"I own that breaking the engagement was no effort."
"And a little unkind?"
"A deplorable piece of self-indulgence by a shrew. That's what you're trying to say, isn't it?"
"He is looking forward so much to having you. I can't think why."
"Thanks. I can tell you why. So that he can cry all over me and tell me how he hates acting-which is the breath of life to him."
"Even if he bores you —»
"If! My God!"
" — you can surely put up with him for an hour or so, and not use Rouse's accident as a sort of ace from your sleeve."
"Are you trying to make an honest woman of me, Lucy Pym?"
"That is the general idea. I feel so sorry for him, being left-"
"My-good-woman," Lux said, stabbing a forefinger at Lucy with each word, "never be sorry for Edward Adrian. Women spend the best years of their lives being sorry for him, and end by being sorry for it. Of all the self-indulgent, self-deceiving —»
"But he has got a Johannisberger."
Lux stopped, and smiled at her.
"I could do with a drink, at that," she said reflectively.
She walked on a little.
"Are you really leaving Teddy high and dry?" she asked.
"Yes."
"All right. You win. I was just being a beast. I'll go. And every time he trots out that line about: 'Oh, Catherine, how weary I am of this artificial life' I shall think with malice: That Pym woman got me into this."
"I can bear it," Lucy said. "Has anyone heard how Rouse is?"
"Miss Hodge has just been on the telephone. She is still unconscious."
Lucy, seeing Henrietta's head through the window of her office-it was known as the office but was in reality the little sitting-room to the left of the front door-went in to compliment her on the success of the afternoon and so take her mind for at least a moment or two off the thing that oppressed it, and Miss Lux walked on. Henrietta seemed glad to see her, and even glad to have repeated to her the platitudes she had been listening to all the afternoon, and Lucy stayed talking to her for some time; so that the gallery was almost filled again when she took her seat to watch the dancing.
Seeing Edward Adrian in one of the gangway seats she paused and said:
"Catherine is coming."
"And you?" he said, looking up.
"No, alas; I am having a migraine at six-thirty sharp."
Whereupon he said: "Miss Pym, I adore you," and kissed her hand.
His next-door neighbour looked startled, and someone behind tittered, but Lucy liked having her hand kissed. What was the good of putting rose-water and glycerine on every night if you didn't have a little return now and then?
She went back to her seat at the end of the front row, and found that the dowager with the lorgnettes had not waited for the dancing; the seat was empty. But just before the lights went down-the hall was curtained and artificially lit-Rick appeared from behind and said: "If you are not keeping that seat for anyone, may I sit there?"