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You're such a sweet, simple old ass that you can't see what everybody else sees. The woman's poison. She's frightful. Everybody knows it. Vain, affected, utterly selfish, and as hard as nails.'
    I had to laugh at that.
    'As hard as nails, eh?'
    'Harder.'
    I laughed again. Whole thing so dashed absurd.
    'You think so, do you?' I said. 'Funny you should say that. Extremely funny. Because the one thing she is is gentle and sensitive and highly strung and so forth. Let me tell you of a little episode that occurred on the train. I was describing round five of the recent heavyweight championship contest to her, and when I came to the bit about the blood her eyeballs rolled upwards and she swooned away.'
    'She did, did she?'
    'Passed right out. I never saw anything so womanly in my life.'
    'And it didn't occur to you, I suppose, that she was just putting on an act?' 'An act?'
    'Yes. And it worked, apparently. Because now I hear that you follow her everywhere she goes, bleating.' 'I do not bleat.'
    'The story going the round of the clubs is that you do bleat. People say they can hear you for miles on a clear day. My poor Reggie, she was just fooling you. The woman goes to all the fights in Los Angeles and revels in them.'
    'I don't believe it.'
    'She does, I tell you. Can't you see that she was simply making a play for you because you're Lord Havershot? That's all she's after - the title. For heaven's sake, Reggie, lay off while there's still time.'
    I eyed her coldly and detached my coat from her grasp.
    'Let us talk of something else,' I said.
    'There's nothing else I want to talk about.'
    Then don't let's talk at all. I don't know if you realize it, but what we're doing is perilously near to speaking lightly of a woman's name - the sort of thing chaps get kicked out of clubs for.'
    'Reggie, will you listen to me?'
    'No. I jolly well won't.'
    'Reggie!'
    'No. Let's drop the subj.' She gave a little sigh.
    'Oh, very well,' she said. 'I might have known it would be no use trying to drive sense into a fat head like yours ... April June!'
    'Why do you say "April June" like that?'
    'Because it's the only way to say it.'
    'Well, let me tell you I resent your saying "April June" as if you were mentioning the name of some particularly unpleasant disease.'
    'That is the way I shall go on saying "April June".'
    I bowed stiffly.
    'Oh, right ho,' I said. 'Please yourself. After all, your methods of voice production are your own affair. And now, as I observe my hostess approaching, I will beetle along and pay my respects. This will leave you at liberty to go off into a corner by yourself and say "April June", if you so desire, till the party is over and they lock up the house and put the cat out.'
    'They don't put her out. She lives here.'
    I made no reply to this vulgar crack. I felt that it was beneath me. Besides, I couldn't think of anything. I moved away in silence. I could feel Ann's eyes on the back of my neck, like Eggy's spiders, but I did not look round.
    I pushed off to where April was greeting a covey of guests and barged in, hoping ere long to be able to detach her from the throng and have a private word with her on a tender and sentimental subject.
    Well, of course, it wasn't easy, because a hostess has much to occupy her, but eventually she seemed satisfied that she had got things moving and could leave people to entertain themselves, so I collared a table for two in a corner of the lawn and dumped her down there. And we had steak and kidney pie and the usual fixings, and presently we started wading into vanilla ice-cream.
    And all the while my determination to slap my heart down before her was growing. Ann's derogatory remarks hadn't weakened me in the slightest. All rot, they seemed to me. As I watched this lovely girl shovelling down the stuff, I refused to believe that she wasn't everything that was perfect. I braced myself for the kick-off. At any moment now, I felt, it might occur. It was simply a question of watching out for