“That reminds me of my new puce stockings,” said Melsie Ponting. “Do you know that no less than three gentlemen acquaintances—old beaux of mine, you know—stopped me on Geary to say how cute they looked. Don’t you want to say something about my puce stockings, Banner?” Emily whispered incautiously to Edward, “I think she even sleeps with mistletoe over her bed.” Edward was strongly stroking the dog’s head. “The point of a dog,” he said, “is that you can always pretend to yourself that the dog is saying to itself, ‘Well say, this is a feller worth knowing.’ They always look like that. No dog ever will show that he despises you.” “Edward,” said Emily, “are your spirits always at half mast?” Edward had an acute pain in his head, under his eyebrow. But his mind seemed to him detached from the pain and extraordinarily facile. He could hear well, he felt, but this was because Banner Hope was singing in such a sharp voice. Edward said, “It is more dramatic to be sad than to be happy, anyway, Emily. Everything that is meant to be dramatic is sad. The song that Hope is singing is—like all jazz songs—about being far away from where you want to be.” “Sadness is too easy,” said Emily. “It is like mother-love and the weakness of little children and the old home and the maiden’s prayer—a too easy short cut to drama. All my life I have been dramatic but I have never arrived at drama by sadness.” There seemed to be things rolling about under Edward’s forehead. He thought they were loaded dice; they did not feel like balls, they hurt too much and had too many corners. He was almost pleased when he tried to stand and found himself too giddy. Edward realised for the first time that it was raining outside. There were miles of air full of rain, like steel bars between him and safe towns and a warm bed. “Gee!” exclaimed Melsie, unremittingly facetious. “Edward’s British standards have fallen down on him. One twist too many in the lemon peel, Mr. Williams.” But Rhoda saw his eyes and rose with that tolerant yet exasperated look to which Edward was accustomed when he needed sympathy. There was wild agony in his forehead. He fell down. He rolled upon one side and then on the other. For a second he saw Emily looking detached, looking at him with an expression of excited contempt. Was she saying, “Oh, what a party!” to herself? Rhoda pressed her hands firmly over his eyes, her cold hands moved firmly about his forehead.... Edward was not good at bearing pain although he was fairly well accustomed to the exercise. It was only after disgracing himself in his own eyes and in Emily’s several times by crying in the car that he found himself in a ward in a San Francisco hospital. It was immediately apparent that he could not escape an operation. The surgeon tapped his forehead impressively and his gold teeth gleamed briskly down upon the horizontal Edward.