But at this very moment she was as she had once been, pointing out that I was one of the reasons why "girls go wrong in London. For if I had taken any notice of your pompous warnings to let Roger and Antony be as they were, I would have gone through life with a fixed idea of how horrible men are to each other. Whereas, you know, they aren't that at all--for instance, those two are quite divine together, and very pleased to have made up their absurd quarrel. And as I look at them it's very difficult to believe that all your talk about them wasn't a nightmare, or a bad short story badly translated from the Russian." In fact it was quite remarkable, she told me, how good they seemed to be for each other; fancifully, as though each one had taken on something of the other's quality--Antony seeming to have become more intelligent and balanced, and Roger more genial, more--well--human. Which, of course, made everything much more pleasant for her.... But I had to protest when she said that Antony seemed so interested in talking and listening to his brother that he noticed her very little; that, in fact, she had been rather shocked to see that he wasn't now wasting any time over any remnants of good looks that might still be left to her since he had left England. "He doesn't ignore me, of course. He is quite charming and courteous, and tries his best to lower his voice when speaking to one, in the old way, but--well, he's only just aware when I am in or out of the room," she added helpfully. That aroused in me a perverse candour about something so far untouched between us, and I said: "But you know as well as I do, Iris, that you were one of the main reasons, or the main reason, why Antony wanted to make friends with Roger." She stared at me thoughtfully, as though examining a certain mental aspect of me; but I seemed to have been wrong about the infernal man so often as far as she was concerned that I was now quite reckless about making just one more _faux pas_. "And," I added grimly, "wanted to see if you liked Roger as much or more than you--" "All right, all right," she impatiently stopped me. "Ronnie, you've developed a great talent for seeming to give knowledge when you're only roasting chestnuts. Of course, I had gathered all that--not too seriously, of course. There is always an indecent part of one that flatters oneself that one just might be worth fighting about--and so it wasn't difficult to work up a dim but thrilling idea that Antony might still be trying out his luck after two years; and, after you had been so beastly about him, that he might be wanting to spite Roger because of me--being a man, you know, and as common-minded as most men about such things as rivalries and revenges about women. But it's very obvious now that all that was just the froth of our diseased minds, and that poor Antony quite sincerely wanted Roger to like him--and for his own, not for my sake."