She drew her hands over her eyes and murmured, “Mark’s extraordinary. Endless enthusiasm. Like a kiddy with a box of water colours. I suppose it’s belief. He really believes in his job.... I once thought he needed education.... If he’d been educated, he couldn’t have believed so hard.... There has to be something childish to get along in the theatre.... If he were worldly wise he’d have known half these plays were rubbish and the rest not very good.... But I’m not sure what a good play is, Gurdy. Tell me. You’re young, so you should know.” He flushed, then laughed and asked what play Margot and her friends rehearsed. The loud, spaced voices came across the hall. He felt an unruly curiosity stir. “It’s a one act thing of Ronny Dufford’s--Colonel the Honourable Ronald Dufford. Quite a pal of Margot’s. That was he talking to you in the hall just now--the Brass Hat. What are you laughing at?” “Wondering what would happen to an American General Staff man if he wrote plays.... Dufford? Mark put a thing of his on in nineteen sixteen. It failed.” “His things are rather thin. He’s been nice to Margot, though. He took her about when I was in mourning--He’s a good sort. Forty eight or so. I dare say he lectured Margot on the greatness of Empire and the sacredness of the House of Lords. It didn’t hurt her. She hears enough about the sacredness of the plain people, in the studios.” “I thought you were an anti-imperialist and an anarchist?” The tired woman laughed, “So I am.... It was tremendous fun being all the right things when I was young and anarchists were rather few. I expect you’re a cubist and a communist and agnostic and don’t believe in marriage. So many of them don’t. Then they get married to prove the soundness of their theory and get hurt; then they’re annoyed because they’re hurt and get interested in being married. Most amusing to watch.... The world’s got past me and I’m frightened by it.--We had such a good time railing at the Victorians and repression. And now all the clever young things tell their emotions to cab drivers and invent emotions if they haven’t any.--All the gestures have changed and I feel--You look rather like Mark. You know he was stopping at Winchester when he heard Margot’s father’d been killed. I tried to shock him. He.... Oh, do go and watch them rehearse, Gurdy!... I’ve just come from church.... The music’s made me silly. I don’t know what I’m saying....” The artifice smashed into a sob. Gurdy swung and hurried across the hall. Certainly, the woman’s illusion of pain was notably real.