‘It’s not often I speak of him to anyone,’ said Julian; and his usually narrow swift-glancing eyes suddenly opened wide and held hers as if he had some unendurable thought. They were pits of misery. What was he remembering? After a long silence he took the boy on his lap again and said softly: ‘Peter shall play.’ Peter put out both his hands, and carefully, delicately dropped them on the keys, listening and smiling. ‘Is he musical?’ Julian nodded. ‘Oh yes. He’s that--more or less. I seem to detect all the symptoms.’ He looked down at the leaning head on his shoulder with a sort of harsh tenderness; and after a while he spoke again as if out of a deep musing. ‘What, one asks oneself, is she going to do about him?’ ‘Mariella?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well--it’s more or less mechanical, with a boy, isn’t it? School and university,--and in his case, musical instruments?’ ‘How _wretched_ he’s going to be,’ he said fiercely, ‘Can’t you _see_?’ ‘She wouldn’t let him be wretched,’ she said, startled. ‘She?--she won’t know it! And if she did, she’d be helpless.’ ‘Well, he’s got you.’ ‘Me!’ He gave his bark of laughter. ‘I mean--you like him,’ she ventured timidly. ‘I can’t stand brats. And they can’t stand me.’ ‘I’m not talking about brats. I’m talking about Peter. I thought you liked him.’ He laughed. ‘You look so shocked. Do _you_ like brats then?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Hmm--Well, I dare say Mariella says the same. In fact, I’ve heard her. She’s very correct, poor darling, in all her little contributions.’ He looked at the clock. ‘It’s time I took him up. Wait for me.’ When he came back he laughed again. ‘You still look shocked. I’m not a nice man, am I?’ ‘I’m not thinking about you.’ After a pause he said: ‘It’s all right, Judy. You’re right. I do like him. But because I’m bound to feel, must I refuse to think?’ ‘Think what?’ ‘That he ought never to have been born.’ ‘Oh!’ she blushed, horrified. He flung at her: ‘What do you wish for the people you love? Life?’ ‘Of course. Don’t you?’ She was confused, out of her depth. ‘No--God, no!’ ‘Then what?’ ‘Unconsciousness. Heavenly, _heavenly_ annihilation.’ ‘Then why don’t you kill him?’ She was shocked at the sound of her own words. ‘Because I don’t love him enough.’ He laughed. ‘Luckily I don’t love anyone enough--never shall. Not even myself.’ He turned to the window and said, speaking low, with strained composure: ‘Sometimes--in moments of clear vision--I see it all, the whole futile sickening farce. But it gets obscured. So my friends are safe. Besides, I’m so damned emotional: if they implored me to save them I shouldn’t have the heart to argue how much wiser they’d be to die.’ She wondered with alarm if he were mad and sat silent, waiting in vain for an intelligent counter-argument to present itself. Finally she stammered: ‘But it’s not a futile sickening farce to normal people.’