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of a child twice or three times her age and saying she’s so well-grown because of Gatebury’s food, then you get more pounds for saying that no nursing mother would care to retire without her cup of Bovo, and finally I can now edit the Mothers’ and Kiddies’ Sunshine Page in the
Daily Runner
under my own name, so I get an extra pound a week for that. Oh, yes, the little dear is pulling her weight in the home and no mistake.’
    Later that evening Paul escorted Marcella to a party given by one of her Slade friends. For Marcella, like so many girls, studied Art in her odd moments.
    ‘It is to be a Russian party,’ she told him as their taxicab threaded the mazes of S.W. 14, ‘in honour of Peter Dickinson, who has just come back from Moscow.’
    Paul thought that under the circumstances Mr. Dickinson would most probably have preferred any other sort of party, but he refrained from saying so.
    ‘There is to be some interesting conversation,’ said Marcella.
    ‘I hope there’ll be something to drink,’ said Paul.
    They arrived at abasement flat decorated with tasteless frescoes. All Marcella’s arty friends lived in basement flats decorated with tasteless frescoes. There were hardly any chairs, but the floor was covered with the semi-recumbent forms of dirty young men in stained and spotted grey flannel trousers and dirty young women with long greasy hair. One of the young men, presumably Peter Dickinson, was holding forth when they arrived.
    ‘Yes, I went to see the timber camps; they are fine, wonderful, a triumph of organization. A clean, healthy outdoor life, think what that must mean to these city clerks, people accustomed only to the fetid air of offices. They are as happy as little children, and in everything that they do, their work, their play, they keep always before them their wonderful ideal of communism.’
    Paul thought that they sounded rather like Boy Scouts, and was unattracted by the idea. He soon wished he could go home. Marcella had disappeared almost at once accompanied by a tall young man with side-whiskers, and he saw nobody else that he knew. Although the party was by way of being Russian he could find neither vodka, caviare nor Russian cigarettes to cheer him; in fact, the only noticeable attribute of that great country was the atmosphere of dreariness and hopeless discomfort which prevailed. The chains of love, however, kept him there until past three in the morning, when Marcella appeared and announced that she was quite ready to go home. Paul felt too tired to make a scene about the young man with side-whiskers, and devoted his remaining supply of energy to finding a taxi. These are rare in S.W. 14 at three a.m.
    ‘How all your friends do dislike me,’ said Marcella complacently as they bumped away in the ancient vehicle which he had eventually procured. ‘Those Monteaths were horrid to me last night. But perhaps she’s jealous, poor thing, of me being so young and pretty.’
    ‘Sally?’ said Paul. ‘Sally’s incapable of jealousy, I assure you. Besides, she quite honestly thinks you very plain and boring indeed,’ he added in an attempt at revenge for the terrible evening he had just undergone. This reply was so unexpected that Marcella was for once quite unable to defend herself, and was quiet and affectionate during the remaining part of the drive to Gloucester Square where she lived. She snuggled as close to Paul as the patent leather covering to the springlessseats would allow, and in the hall of her house she gave him a long, hot and sticky kiss, saying, ‘Anyhow, you think I’m beautiful, don’t you?’
    ‘The poor girl is admiration mad,’ thought Paul. ‘Apart from that she’s not a bad little thing, though heaven knows how I can be in love with her.’

4
    The more Paul considered the idea of writing a biography, the more it seemed to offer him an ideal medium for self-expression, and one into which he could pour his heart and soul without risk of ill-timed