It’s all because I enjoyed meeting the people you had here today. They’re among the really important people in the world—a thousand times more so than all the politicians and gunmen —”

“Why don’t you add ‘and millionaires’?”

Paul laughed again. “That would be TOO personal, but it’s not a bad idea for my article.”

“I thought it was going to be about the little girl.”

“Oh, I start with her, that’s all. Then I work around to art and artists.”

“From what you said about her acting I shouldn’t have thought there was much connection.”

Paul felt that in a rather dangerous way a core of antagonism between them had been found and now needed only to be exploited. He said lightly: “The way I write, there don’t have to be connections. That’s the trick— anything’ll do that comes into my head.”

“So long as you keep a COOL head. Something I said just now seemed to rub you the wrong way.”

“No, but it made me realize what side I’m on.”

“Oh, come now, Paul, aren’t you rather deliberately misunderstanding me? You must know I’m not a philistine. I appreciate art and I respect artists as much as you do. If I don’t take them quite as seriously as some of them take themselves, that’s because I have a sense of humour.”

“No, sir, that’s because you have a million in the bank, or ten million, or whatever it is.”

Rowden flushed. “Please don’t call me ‘sir’. And believe me when I say I was far more amused than shocked by your gaffe this afternoon. It WAS funny —one of the really important people in the world—by your own estimate, not mine—and you send him scurrying off like a—like a spanked puppy!”

“I’ve said I’m sorry. What else can I do?”

“Not a thing—or you’d probably make it worse… Some more tea?”

“No, thanks.”

“When are you going to write the article?”

“Tomorrow, I think.”

“Fine. You can have the library here to yourself and I’ll tell Briggs you aren’t to be interrupted. Would you like a secretary for the typing?”

“Heavens, no—I do all that myself. What sort of life do you think I’m used to?”

“I was really only trying to be of service.”

Paul found himself suddenly touched. He was always sensitive to the hidden note in a voice, and in Rowden’s last sentence there had been such a note, of humility, almost of self-abasement. But after being touched, he was disturbed; the note came too uneasily from a man like Rowden and after such an argument. He knew then that what was happening between him and Rowden was a repetition of what had happened before in his life—the progress of a relationship to the point of chafing, as if there were something fundamentally raw in his personality that made friendship difficult and hostility almost welcome as a relief. He felt ashamed of his rudeness, yet at the same time he slightly resented having been out-generalled by Rowden’s better manners, and he silently upbraided himself in words he remembered because he had once spoken them aloud, after a similar incident with someone else: “I shouldn’t ever argue about art with people who aren’t artists —I really ought to keep off the subject—I get a chip on my shoulder, I don’t know why, I guess it’s the way I’m made.”

“Might I read the article before you send it off?” Rowden was asking.

“Why, sure, but it won’t be much in your line.”

“Perhaps not, but I’m interested… You see, I’ve done a little writing myself from time to time—though not commercially.” He went to one of the library shelves and took down a small morocco-bound volume; Paul was moving to inspect it when Rowden hastily put it back. “No, no—not now. There’s another copy on the shelf by your bed—I thought you might have noticed it.”

Paul said he hadn’t. “If I’d known it was something of yours… but I haven’t done much reading in bed while I’ve been here, I’ve been too sleepy… I certainly won’t miss it tonight, though.” And then, with an effect of release from stress, he remembered the copy of Martin Chuzzlewit he had borrowed from Carey. He hadn’t had time to look at that either.

Rowden’s uneasiness had now reached a point of evident urgency. “Please don’t take any trouble about it. I’ve inscribed the book to you—I would be happy for you to have it. Just a few verses I wrote years ago —trivial, one reviewer said—the only reviewer, in fact. Another word he used was ‘unpleasant’.”

“Unpleasant? How did he make that out?”

“Perhaps he was a little prim. Today that kind of attitude is rare among sophisticated people—almost as rare as scholarship. Some of the verses, by the way, are in Latin and Greek.”

“Without a translation? Not much good to me, then. I know Latin slightly, but no Greek at all.”

“They have their uses, the classical tongues.