“If you will collect everyone and bring them here, I’ll keep them together and send for Patch, and we’ll go through the whole thing,” I said. “Right you are. I’ll ring the gong and they’ll think it’s lunch. That’ll bring them.” “The young are so cynical nowadays,” I heard Sallie murmur. “Why not be content with the _spirit_ of the thing, supposing the actual letter fails me?” Alfred Kendal suggested in the distance. “As a matter of fact, there’s always a certain amount of gag expected at a show of this kind.” “I’m sure you’ll get it in a minute,” said Nancy, with her usual kindly, if unfounded, optimism. “Let’s just run through it again ... ‘color of the sea.’” They crawled through it again. Martyn’s performance on the gong actually did bring most people into the hall and I then announced that a final rehearsal was to take place at once, and everybody said that it was utterly impossible and adduced important reasons why they should be somewhere else doing something quite different. “Very well, then we’ll call a general rehearsal immediately after lunch. Three o’clock sharp. Does that suit everybody?” Almost everybody assented, presumably because they were relieved at having the thing postponed for an hour or two. “What about Mrs. Harter?” Martyn suddenly inquired. She was not present. “If it’s to be the last rehearsal we ought to do the thing properly and have her song at the beginning and at the end.” “I can send her down a note,” said Claire. “I’ll fetch her on my motor bike,” young Martyn volunteered. He is not always so ready to put himself out on behalf of other people. “Does Martyn admire Mrs. Harter?” I had the curiosity to ask his sister later. “It’s mostly that he’s so frightfully interested. The whole psychological situation, you know,” Sallie explained. “I think it’s interesting, too, but I don’t agree with him altogether that it’s her personality that makes it so. Bill, in his own way, is quite as well worth watching as she is.” “You talk as though it were a cinematograph film being shown for your express benefit.” “That’s rather a good simile,” said Sallie condescendingly. “My dear child, bar joking, I wish you’d tell me something. These two people, I quite agree with you, are out of the ordinary. Are you wholly and solely curious, and analytical, and interested--or do you ever feel sorry for them?” I really wanted to know, and Sallie saw that. “Honestly, I don’t think I really feel sorry for them, because if the whole thing came to an end to-morrow--say, she went back to her husband and he started an affair with somebody else--I should be disappointed, in a way. I don’t want it all to peter out in some trivial way. I want to have something worth watching.” “Quite impersonally?” “Of course,” said Sallie.