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the central fulcrum of fun by going through the dining-room door.
    â€˜Just a second! …’ said Colin. ‘Are Alyssum and Chick there already?’
    â€˜Of course,’ said Isis. ‘Come on, this is …’
    Half the girls were presentable. One of them was wearing an almond-green cashmere dress with great buttons of gilded pottery and, in its low back, a modesty vest of the most unusual design.
    â€˜That’s the one I want to meet first, please,’ said Colin.
    Isis shook him and told him to behave himself.
    â€˜Are you going to be a good boy, my lad? …’
    But he already had his eyes on a different girl, and was dragging his guide towards her.
    â€˜This is Colin,’ said Isis. ‘Colin, this is Chloe.’
    Colin took a tremendous gulp. His mouth felt as if it were stuffed with the frizzled crumbs of burnt doughnuts.
    â€˜Hallo!’ said Chloe.
    â€˜Ha … Have you been put into an arrangement by Duke Ellington?’ asked Colin … And then he ran away because he knew he had said something very silly.
    Chick grabbed him by the flap on the back of his jacket.
    â€˜Where do you think you’re going? You can’t run away like that. Look what I’ve got! …’
    He pulled a little book bound in red morocco out of his pocket.
    â€˜It’s the first edition of Heartre’s
Spewpuke Paradox
…’
    â€˜So you managed to find it at last?’ said Colin.
    Then he remembered that he was running away – and so he started to run again.
    Alyssum stood in his way.
    â€˜Do you mean to say you’re going home without even having one tiny little dance with me?’ she said.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ said Colin, ‘but I’ve just done something idiotic and I can’t possibly stay any longer.’
    â€˜But if somebody looks at you like this, how can you possibly refuse?’
    â€˜Oh, Alyssum …’ groaned Colin, putting his arm round her and nestling his cheek into her hair.
    â€˜What’s the matter, my poor dear old Colin?’
    â€˜I’ve put my damned silly foot into it and ruined everything, blast it! See that girl there? …’
    â€˜You mean Chloe? …’
    â€˜Do you know her? …’ said Colin. ‘I said the silliest thing to her, and that’s why I was running home.’
    He did not add that it was as if one of those German brass bands where you can hear nothing but the big drums was playing at full blast inside his noon-blue shirt.
    â€˜She’s pretty, isn’t she?’ said Alyssum.
    Chloe had red lips, dark brown hair, a gay happy smile, and a dress that might just as well not have been there at all.
    â€˜I daren’t answer you!’ said Colin.
    So he left Alyssum, and went to ask Chloe. She looked at him. And then laughed and put her hand on his shoulder. He felt her cool fingers against the back of his neck. He curtailed the distance between their two bodies by temporarily disembraining both heads of his right biceps which had just received a judiciously commissioned cranial communication.
    Chloe went on looking at him. She shook her long silky hair out of her blue eyes, and with a firm gesture of determination applied her temples to Colin’s cheek.
    An enormous silence spread out around them, and the major part of the rest of the world faded into insignificance.
    But, as they might have expected, the record came to an end. Then, and only then, did Colin come down to earth and notice that the ceiling was made of transparent perspex and that the people upstairs were looking down at them. A wide border of water-irises sealed off the bottoms of the walls, and variously coloured vapours were escaping here and there through specially made openings in the ceiling. He also noticed that his friend Isis was standing in front of him with some refreshments on an onyx platter.
    â€˜No thanks, Isis,’ said Chloe, tossing her hair.
    â€˜Yes