No! If Gurdon Minho was a frost, it would have to be a musician, whose works were hieroglyphical with a dash of surgery; or, better, perhaps, a psychoanalyst. Her fingers turned the pages till she came to those two categories. Hugo Solstis? A possibility; but suppose he wanted to play them something recent? There was only Michael’s upright Grand, and that would mean going to his study. Better Gerald Hanks – he and Nesta Gorse would get off together on dreams; still, if they did, there would be no actual loss of life. Yes, failing Gurdon Minho, Gerald Hanks; he would be free – and put him between Alison and Nesta. She closed the book, and, going back to her jade-green settee, sat gazing at Ting-a-ling. The little dog’s prominent round eyes gazed back; bright, black, very old. Fleur thought: ‘I don’t want Wilfrid to drop off.’ Among all the crowd who came and went, here, there and everywhere, she cared for nobody. Keep up with them, keep up with everything, of course! It was all frightfully amusing, frightfully necessary! Only – only – what?

Voices! Michael and Bart coming back. Bart had noticed Wilfrid. He was a noticing old Bart. She was never very comfortable when he was about – living and twisting, but with something settled and ancestral in him; a little like Ting-a-ling – something judgematic, ever telling her that she was fluttering and new. He was anchored, could only move to the length of his old-fashioned cord, but he could drop on to things disconcertingly. Still, he admired her, she felt – oh! yes.

Well! What had he thought of the cartoons? Ought Michael to publish them, and with letterpress or without? Didn’t he think that the cubic called ‘Still Life’ – of the Government, too frightfully funny – especially the ‘old bean’ representing the Prime? For answer she was conscious of a twisting, rapid noise; Sir Lawrence was telling her of his father’s collection of electioneering cartoons. She did wish Bart would not tell her about his father; he had been so distinguished, and he must have been so dull, paying all his calls on horseback, with trousers strapped under his boots. He and Lord Charles Cariboo and the Marquis of Forfar had been the last three ‘callers’ of that sort. If only they hadn’t, they’d have been clean forgot. She had that dress to try, and fourteen things to see to, and Hugo’s concert began at eight-fifteen! Why did people of the last generation always have so much time? And, suddenly, she looked down. Ting-a-ling was licking the copper floor. She took him up: ‘Not that, darling; nasty!’ Ah! the spell was broken! Bart was going, reminiscent to the last. She waited at the foot of the stairs till Michael shut the door on him, then flew. Reaching her room, she turned on all the lights. Here was her own style – a bed which did not look like one, and many mirrors. The couch of Ting-a-ling occupied a corner, whence he could see himself in three. She put him down, and said: ‘Keep quiet, now!’ His attitude to the other dogs in the room had long become indifferent; though of his own breed and precisely his colouring, they had no smell and no licking power in their tongues – nothing to be done with them, imitative creatures, incredibly unresponsive.

Stripping off her dress, Fleur held the new frock under her chin.

‘May I kiss you?’ said a voice, and there was Michael’s image behind her own reflection in the glass.

‘My dear boy, there isn’t time! Help me with this.’ She slipped the frock over her head. ‘Do those three top hooks. How do you like it? Oh! and – Michael! Gurdon Minho may be coming to dinner tomorrow – Wilfrid can’t. Have you read his things? Sit down and tell me something about them. All novels, aren’t they? What sort?’

‘Well, he’s always had something to say. And his cats are good.