The talk at first was the usual high-brow chatter of the period—Flecker and Brooke and Mr. Russell, referred to as “Bertie” in a casual way by Fanny and Reggie, to the mystification of George. This is one of the charming traits of the English intelligentsia. Every one they don’t know is an outsider, and they love to keep the outsider outside by a gently condescending patronage. A most effective method is to talk nonchalantly about well-known people by their Christian names: “Have you read Johnny’s last book?” “No-oh. Not yet. The last one was a dreadful bore. Is this any better?” “No-oh, I don’t think so. Tommy dislikes it profoundly. Says it reminds him of sports on the village green.” “How a-_mus_ing!” “Oh, Tommy can be quite a-_mus_ing at times. I was with him and Bernard the other day, and Bernard said...” And if the outsider is silly enough to bite, and to say timidly or bluntly: “Who’s Johnny?” the answer comes swift and sweet: “O-oh! Don’t you _know_...!” And then the dazzled outsider is condescendingly informed who “Johnny” is, and especially if a mere American or Continental, is crushed to learn that “Johnny” is Johnny Walker or some other enormously brilliant light in the firmament of British culture.... * * * * * George got sick of hearing about “Bertie” without being told who the devil Bertie was, and began to talk about Ezra Pound, Jules Romains and Modigliani. But he soon learned by sweet implication that such people might be all very well in their way, but after all, well, you know what I mean, Cambridge _is_ Cambridge.... So George shut up, and said nothing. Then Reggie began to talk to Elizabeth about Alpine climbing, the sport of Dons—and a very appropriate one too, if you think about it. And Fanny talked to George. Now Fanny was quite a subtile little beast of the field, and saw that George was a bit sulky, and guessed why. Vapourish airs were indifferent to her. She had been brought up among such people, and unconsciously adopted their tone when speaking to them. But when she was among other sorts of people she just as unconsciously dropped the vapourish airs, and let her natural self respond to theirs. She had a foot, one might almost say a leg, in several social worlds; and got on perfectly well in any of them. There was a sort of physical indifference in Fanny which at first sight looked like mere hardness, and wasn’t. In fact, she wasn’t nearly as hard as Elizabeth, who could be quite Stonehenge-y at times. And then suddenly crumble. But Fanny’s physical indifference carried her through a lot; one felt that her morning bath had something Lethean about it, and washed away the memory of last night’s lover along with his touch.