“Right. I forgive you though because you’re young and simple and your legs are rather jolly in those things.” She twisted her head to stare at his leggings and the black hair rose, settled back into its carved composure below the strong, shaded lamp. The clear red of her lips parted as she laughed, “Not a blush? Made the world safe for democracy and aren’t proud of it? How did your friends get through? That rather sweet lad who used to come to lunch when you were at school? Lacy--?” “Lacy Martin. Lost a leg.” She frowned. “Doesn’t matter so much for a chap like that with billions but--the artists. I must have St. Ledger do you. We’ll go there tomorrow. I had Cosmo--Rand have himself done.” Gurdy made a shot and said, “Rand’s a much prettier subject than I’d be.” “Don’t get coy, my lad! You’re rather imposing and you know it.--Like to meet Gilbert Chesterton? You used to read his junk. I can have you taken there. Never met him, myself.” “No thanks.--What’s that bell?” “Dress for dinner. You can’t. I must.--I say, you’re altogether different from what I thought you’d be.” “What did you think?” “I couldn’t possibly tell you but I’m damned glad you’re not. The butler can make cocktails. Dad taught him in nineteen seventeen.” The butler brought him an evil mixture. Gurdy emptied it into the fireplace and leaned on the pool table wondering what Margot had expected. It didn’t matter, of course. Yet she might recall him as a sixteen year old schoolboy much absorbed in polevaults and stiff with conceit for some acquirements in English letters. How people changed and how foolish it was to be surprised at change! Sophomoric. Mark really knew a pretty woman when he saw one. A man of genuine taste outside the selection of plays.--She must know London expertly. She must have a sense of spectacle. She must meet all conditions with this liberal, successful woman as a guide. If she wanted a pastel made for Mark she should have it. Gurdy dusted chalk from his leggings, evenly taped about the long strength of his calves, strolled into the drawing room and played the languid movement of the Faun’s Afternoon. Illusory or not there was always beauty in the blended exterior of things. A man should turn from the inner crassness to soothe himself with the fair investiture, with the drift of delicate motions that went in colour and music.--Olive thought him like Mark as she came in. She was worried because Gail had written of meeting the boy on Montmartre. “You’ve been enjoying Paris?” “More or less. It’s a holy show, just now. I don’t suppose the barkeepers--and other parasites--will ever have such a chance again.” “I hope you’ve not been in too much mischief. Ian Gail wrote me that he met you in some horrid hole or other.”