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classical for him. She might be warm, but not cosy. A little haughty, except with those she acknowledged. He did not think she had accepted him. It was hard to learn that from a woman whose profile was like—it would have been like Brynhild’s, only she was too quick for a Teutonic goddess. She was wasted on a chap whose game was bales and casks and all that. Such a fellow could do nothing with a bosom which was meant for privileged joy. Beside her, Doris was a peevish child. All the same it would not be pleasant to annoy Helen. Those little lines were not at the corners of her mouth for nothing. Things had fallen a bit flat this evening. He must talk.
    â€œI say, Doris,” he said, “I’ve been reading that book of new poems you lent me. Many thanks. But what’s it about?”
    Doris was swaying her beads. “I wondered whether you’d ask that when I lent it, but I might have known you would. You ought to get some change from biology.”
    His grin broadened. “All I can say is, my dear, give me the old songs, though I can’t sing them, if they’re the new. What does poetry want with foot-notes about psychoanalysis and negro mythology?”
    â€œSuppose,” some one asked him, “that you don’t know anything about them?”
    â€œWell, I couldn’t get them out of footnotes and the poetry all in one stride, could I? But Doris, they were very clever and insulting poems, I think. Sing a song of mockery. Is that the latest? But it was a surprising little book, though it smelt like the dissection of bad innards.”
    There was a quiet chuckle above him.
    â€œHullo, Jim. We’ve been waiting for you. Come on. Only as far as the soup, and no hope of progress much before midnight.”
    â€œThis place is only known to the elect,” said Doris.
    â€œAnd so the waiters have no time,” continued the light-hearted young man. “Sit down and let Suvretta refresh you. Look at the Princess Olga. And there’s a table full of Russian dancers over there.
Hors d’auvres
all over the room.”
    Jimmy blinked obediently towards the princess, but saw no distinguishing back in that direction. The Russian dancers, entertained by a newspaper proprietor, were very engaging. The long room, with its vistas deepening into a sort of maroon haze, was warm and chromatic, and sparkling with eager noises at the level of the table lights. Everybody seemed to be enjoying it. He looked at Helen with some concern, but she was talking calmly to Doris. The biologist was relating a story happily to a girl Colet did not know. Plenty of cheerful common sense about that scientist. A healthy boy. A waiter came, performed some legerdemain at the table swiftly but noiselessly, bent over him in confidential and unexpected solicitation, and left him. He could hear only fragments of the conversation.
    â€œGot no time for him. When I open that man’s books, only a little lymph comes out,” said the biologist.
    Helen was gazing absently into her wine, rotating her glass reflectively on the table, as if admiring the gleams of its ruby light. It sent a flush upwards to drift about her throat.
    â€œWhat would you expect, Walcott; blood, these days?”
    â€œDon’t be silly. But I’d like to know why you literary critics are so keen over those morbid symptoms. Why not cut up dogfish with me?”
    The critic looked sadly but tolerantly at the biologist, and smiled. Walcott was so young that he was lively. The kindly critic did not appear to think it was necessary to answer. He guarded the secret of literature with a pleasant but superior smile.
    â€œWell, give me something I can enjoy. I’ve always thought literature was above my laboratory, but from the modern books Doris presses on me for my good I’ve been thinking it must be the same thing as the dissecting slab, only more smelly.”
    â€œIf you are able to find books you can enjoy, why