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  “Perhaps,” Ransom answered her, “we don’t think particularly highly of ourselves.”

  As he was turning from the ballroom Simon Merivale came up, passed his arm through his and led him towards the buffet.

  “Are you aware, Heritage,” he asked, “with whom you have just been dancing?”

  “I don’t know. Rather a jolly kid, I thought. Blanch Tristram didn’t you say her name was?”

  “Yes. Everard Tristram’s daughter.”

  Everard Tristram’s daughter. He turned to look backwards over his shoulder into the ballroom. So that jolly kid with whom he had just been dancing was the girl for whose sake Marjorie’s life had perhaps been ruined. Everard Tristram’s daughter.

  “Does Marjorie know?” he asked.

  “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “Better not tell her then. It would only spoil her evening.”

  In a way it seemed to him symbolic that this girl who should have spoken so angrily of his generation should be implicated so closely, if unconsciously, in the tangling of a life that was in itself perhaps an expression of that post-war tolerance.

  She was the new generation, Ransom told himself, the new generation whom the War had not touched personally, and who would never be able to understand what the War had meant to those others of whose lives the War had been practically an expression, who had put all their eggs, such as they were, into one basket and had seen them smashed. That they could not understand this new Blanch Tristram generation—and in a way, too, the Eric Somerset generation—the generation that had overlapped, that stood half-way between Blanch Tristram and himself, that had not been in the War long enough to lose, as he and the rest of them had lost, their faith in the ultimate value of personal achievement. To Merivale and Partington and himself things scarcely seemed to be any longer worth the winning. They did not want to “get on in the world.” They wanted to make as comfortable as they could the particular spot where they had fallen. If they had any belief at all it was in kindness. In that they did believe. It was the one thing they valued highly, the one quality they looked for in their friends. To be kind was more important than to be brilliant.

  They had lost faith in the value of the other things—privilege, and position, and success. Everyone had left something of themselves in France—their youth, or health, or vigour, and that was what they had left, their faith in the ultimate value of success, and it was that that the Eric Somersets and Blanch Tristrams could not understand. Why should they after all?

  What had the War been for Eric Somerset but a big adventure: to be a man at seventeen; to be in command of men; to have money to spend and things to buy with it; to be admired and respected; to have every nerve quickened by that pervading sense of things not to be recaptured; to arrive in France in the late August of the War; to drive back the Germans through Belgium and Northern France; to hear on all sides of him the shouts of victory. He had not known, as they had known, the long, slow-passing, disillusioning years, the waiting, and the working, and the capture at the loss of half one’s company of fifty yards of trench. He had not known the depression that had settled over the armies in the autumn of 1916 when the failure of the Somme had become apparent. In those days Eric Somerset had been a boy at school, with one fear only, that the War might end too soon for him to take his part in it. He must, Ransom knew, have felt like that, because he could look into his own heart and remember how he would himself have felt at such an age. And because he knew that it is impossible for us to see events except in relation to ourselves, he knew that during those successive autumns of disaster and despair, in 1915 the sack of Serbia, in 1916 Roumania, in 1917 the retreat in Italy, during those days when soldier after soldier had put aside his paper knowing that another year of war was now inevitable, Eric Somerset, whatever he might have said, whatever reason and decent feeling might have prompted him to think, must in the dark corners of his heart have secretly exulted at the further delay of peace, the delay that would make it possible for himself to fight.

  He had not known as they had known the weary routine of reliefs and working parties and divisional rests. He had not known the chicanery and evasions, the disloyalties and insincerities of senior officers. He had not seen the fevered efforts with which influence had worked its way from the front line to the base, nor the effrontery and insolence behind which, once there, it had entrenched itself. He had not known the disillusioning change of spirit whose existence Ransom had discovered on his return after sick leave in 1917 to a territorial depôt and had overheard a very temporary officer remark: “Not a bad place this. You’ve got to be careful though. If they see you wearing a yellow collar you’re out to France on the next draft.” In 1914 to be sent to France was the highest honour that could be paid a soldier; by 1917 it had become a punishment. Somerset had known none of that.

  And because Somerset had seen so little of what they had seen, because the War had been for him, as once it had been to them but had so soon ceased to be, an adventure simply, an adventure that had not ended in disenchantment, he had not been driven as they had been to seek the anodyne of hope in that dream of a new and perfect world that would come with peace. A mad dream no doubt, a dream not to be reconciled with the facts of other wars and other settlements. What would you though? The drug had lain to hand. There had been no other. And because Somerset had not taken it, he had not had to face the discovery in the spring of 1920 that the world was very much what it had always been, a little dirtier perhaps, a little harder to earn a living in, with money less equally and less worthily distributed among people vulgarised by cheap success, who had not learnt the way to spend it. Somerset had been stimulated by the War, but not exhausted by it. He had been able to return fresh and eager with a sense of work needing to be done. He had taken up the threads of his life where he had dropped them, had gone straight up to Lincoln, had taken honours in the short course there, had qualified for the bar and was now in chambers, did his eight hours’ work a day, read at home in the evenings after dinner, did not drink between meals, was not in debt, played squash racquets twice a week and football or cricket every Saturday. He was the new generation, the young, the progressive, the active section of society.

  “And yet,” thought Ransom, “we should all have been much what he is if things had not gone that particular way with us.”

  The majority of the guests had now arrived, and Lady Manon had left her post beside her husband. She had done her duty long enough. It was time she began to enjoy herself. She looked at the number of the dance—Seven. She had half an idea that she had promised this to Chris. But she did not feel particularly in the mood for Chris. Chris could wait. He was wearing his new suit she had noticed. That ought to make him happy. And she wanted him to be happy, the poor dear. He must have felt wretched, of course, in that old pre-war coat of his. You could never really be happy at any party unless you knew that there wouldn’t be anyone better dressed than you were in the room. She ought to have spotted it herself. But then she knew so little about men’s clothes. No woman did, whatever some of them might think. They knew when a man looked nice, but never when he looked correct. And poor Chris had always looked all right. But then with Chris she had always perhaps tried to isolate particular points of him, the particular things about him she had liked, and not to inquire too closely into those things which perhaps she might not like, or not like so much. She took him for what he was, a fragment of decoration that one day she would weary of and replace in the same way that one day she would wake to feel that not for another hour could she endure a green ceiling to her bedroom. You could not rebuild your life, but, thank God, you could always have the walls re-papered.

  Chris could wait. She would dance with him later on. In the meantime there were her other friends. He had gone, she had noticed, apparently in search of her towards the lounge. She moved across to the apex of the two ballrooms and stood watching from beside the band. It looked all right; they seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was th
at nice Captain Merivale dancing badly and unromantically with his sister. She must find time later on to talk with him. An attractive man, even if he could not dance. He should take her down with him to supper. What a lot of people there were here whom she had never seen before. Where did they come from? Had anyone asked them or had they just seen a dance and come to it? There was no reason why they shouldn’t. No one would know. Who was that brown-haired girl? She had seen her before somewhere, seen her and liked her in a rather negative sort of way. And the boy she was dancing with. She’d seen him too before. Who were they? Where had it been? She passed in review the various houses, parties, and dances that she had been to in the last three weeks. At Mrs Richmond’s? No. At Lady Gadsby’s? No. At that last Phoenix show? No. That party at the Wolves? Yes, that was it, of course. How silly of her. Of course—it was Mrs Fairfield. And it was that barrister boy with her. What had he called himself? Somerset or something. That was it, of course. She remembered now. Captain Merivale had given her the addresses of the whole group that morning when he had come to bring back her cloak. Who was she, this Mrs Fairfield, with whom Ransom had been so friendly? She had never seen her anywhere or heard of her. A nice woman, though. Her eyes followed them along the room, casually at first, then curiously, then intently, her interest held by the look in the boy’s face; a look of wonder and reverence and admiration. There was a glow upon his cheeks and in his eyes; and his lips had parted in such an expression of utter unquestioning content as one may surprise at times on the face of a young mother; the awed acceptance of a miracle. “Poor child,” she thought, “he’s in for a bad time. Still, he’s happy now. As much I suppose as one’s a right to ask.”

  And Eric certainly was that; the happier because he had been so miserable before. At first he had been horribly afraid. For days he had been counting the hours and the minutes to this moment. Ever since he had received the invitation he had found work impossible. He could not concentrate upon his books; the thread of argument would slip from him; he would sit back in his chair and say: “It is now Thursday. On Friday week I shall perhaps be seeing her. Friday week. That is eight and a half days off. Eight and a half days ago I was going to bed on the Wednesday evening when the Roberts came to dinner. That hardly seems any while ago. And it will seem no longer from now to that dance than it has been from then to now. Exactly the same interval of time.” And as the week had passed he had kept saying to himself: “It’s no further off now than to-day is from last Saturday, or last Monday, or last Wednesday.” Slowly the hours telescoped together. On the Wednesday evening he had been able to say: “This time to-morrow—and how close that is—I shall be saying it’s only as far as is to-day from yesterday.” And all through the long morning at the Temple he had been watching the hand of his watch go round, saying every half, every quarter of an hour: “It’s no further off now than is breakfast time, or nine o’clock, or half-past ten.” And now it had come at last. And it was more wonderful than anything he had imagined. The band was wonderful, the floor wonderful, she and he and life were wonderful. He was not nervous, he was not self-conscious. He was not asking himself what effect he was making on her. He was conscious only of the ecstasy within himself. Her face as they danced was almost level with his own. How wonderful it would be, he thought, to rest his cheek against that smooth soft surface. But he was not tormented by her nearness. One day perhaps that miracle might come to him. One day perhaps that face might be lifted in love to his. There were all the to-morrows of the world for that. Was it not enough that to-night she should be within his arms, that there should rise about him from her clothes and hair and skin the dizzying scent of Quelques Fleurs, that her eyes as they met his should smile?

  He spoke hardly at all while they were dancing. Time enough afterwards for that. Words would destroy the enchanted moment. And it was indeed almost a relief when Ransom Heritage, as soon as the music stopped, had come up to tell them that they were thinking of going down to supper. To sit and talk after that dance would have been an anti-climax. And later in the evening they would be dancing again together.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Ransom said. “But there’ll be such a scrum later on, and we’ve managed to collect a table that’ll hold the lot of us.”

  The lot of us consisted of Sybyl Merivale and her two brothers, Lady Manon, Roger Partington, Blanch Tristram, and themselves.

  “The old Wolves party, in fact,” said Merivale, “except for Miss Tristram and this young sister of mine. I don’t believe, Mrs Fairfield, I’ve said a word to you since that night. Come and sit next me and tell me how you enjoyed giving evidence in court.”

  The remainder sorted themselves out. Sybyl Merivale found herself between Eric and Ransom Heritage.

  “Tell me now,” she said to Ransom, “about that Mrs Fairfield; is she a nice woman?”

  Ransom smiled. “Extremely,” he answered. “Why?”

  “Because”—she paused, looked at Ransom with extreme solemnity, then said: “You see, Major Heritage, it’s most important that my brother should marry the right sort of woman.”

  Ransom laughed outright at that.

  “Have you any reason,” he asked, “to believe that he wants to marry her?”

  “Oh, no,” she answered. “But you see—well, it’s time he married. I’m introducing him to a lot of really jolly girls, and I don’t want him to make an ass of himself with the wrong sort. You know what men are. They are so silly.”

  “But does your brother want to marry?”

  “I want him to.”

  “Don’t you think he’s quite happy as he is?”

  “He could be happier.”

  She spoke firmly, assertively, but without offence; and was it not after all, thought Ransom, the privilege of her youth and freshness to be self-confident. The past and the present might belong to others, but the future was in her hands. He paused before he answered her, and he spoke when he did reply very slowly, as though he were searching for his words, as though through those words alone his exact meaning could be conveyed.

  “He might be happier,” he said at last. “I’ll allow you that. I imagine that there exists nothing finer than a genuinely happy marriage. But such marriages are rare; myself I am not certain that I have ever seen one. It is a thousand to one chance, and a great many of us do not care to run that risk. We would not run it with our money, why should we with ourselves. When a very young man falls in love for the first time, he has the faith to stake his independence on an emotion so beautiful that he feels it must last for ever. An older man who has been in love and who has fallen out of love, does not care to stake that independence on an emotion that he has outgrown once, and probably will outgrow again. He knows that marriage may hamper him economically, will certainly limit his range of action, and he knows that he can do without it. A man of over twenty-eight with a limited income has, Miss Merivale,” he concluded with a smile, “to be very, very much in love before he’s going to run that risk.”

  He waited for a reply.

  “You think that’s very worldly and practical, and I suppose unworthy, too?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Not unworthy,” she said. “But a little—well, cowardly, I think I should call it, Major Heritage. I think such happiness is worth running a risk for. And besides that’s all nonsense about a woman hampering a man. If she’s worth anything she can make him.”

  “She can,” said Ransom, “but it isn’t easy. A woman can make herself indispensable to a poor man; but if a man’s got money it’s hard for him not to look on her as a possession, to think of her as a luxury that he can either afford, or not afford.”

  Sybyl Merivale pouted. “You’re old fashioned, Major Heritage, hopelessly old fashioned, or else you’re just a bachelor trying to excuse his selfishness. A modern woman won’t allow herself to be looked on as a possession. Marriage is a partnership. I know very well that it’s not going to be my fault if the man I marry isn’t a success.”

  She flushed and,
as people will do who are unable, or are too young to discuss impersonally subjects on which they hold strong opinions, she spoke aggressively. But Ransom was not offended.

  “Go on believing that,” he said; “it’s the only way to fight against long odds.”

  But to himself he added: “Perhaps we all thought rather like that once.”

  Their conversation had been carried on very quietly, and anyhow no one except Blanch Tristram and David Merivale would have been likely to overhear it, for on the opposite side of the table Simon, generously inspired by champagne, was endeavouring to prove that as pain existed only as the opposite of pleasure, cold as the opposite of warmth, darkness as the opposite of light, sin can exist only as the opposite of virtue.

  “If there were no virtue,” he asserted, “there would be no sin. Do you not think then, Lady Manon, that you might start a new religion for abolishing vice by first of all removing virtue? Could we not organise a crusade? We might have an inaugural opium party at the Albert Hall. We might return you as our member for Parliament. Young Somerset could be an archbishop. I would be a dean. A modest creed, and yet pleasant if one considers it. What think you all?”

  “I think, Captain Merivale,” said Lady Manon, “that you’re a very absurd person, and I’m not quite certain that I approve of you.”

  “I should be very sorry if you did. We can only really like what we disapprove of; and I should like you to like me.”

  He spoke jocularly enough, but though his lips smiled his eyes were serious.

  It was after one, and the supper room was very crowded. In the hall outside people were waiting for empty places. Lady Manon cast a quick glance round the table. They all seemed to have finished, and it would be as well perhaps for Chris not to finish off that bottle of champagne.