When, he speculated, does such an irritant make one get up and punch somebody on the nose? Then he chanced to catch Carey’s face and saw in it a disturbance so extreme that his own indignation sharpened. By that time Saffron had abruptly finished; with the plaque in his hand, he had not even said thank-you.

There was perhaps as little applause as a speaker could ever receive without being actually booed or hissed; the chairman rose and, bore though he was, eased the situation and won a grateful laugh by saying: “I think, Mr. Saffron, we must all feel that you are a better maker of pictures than a judge of them.”

The affair broke up very quickly after that, many showing an embarrassed eagerness to escape. Held in conversation with his other neighbour, George was presently aware that Carey had left the table without a sign or a good-night. As he mingled with the departing crowd, he caught sight of Randolph, the producer of Morning Journey. Randolph, whom he knew fairly well, was in consternation; all he could mutter was: “What got into that guy? Is he crazy? You saw the press taking it all down—they loved it —I suppose that’s what he’s after—what ELSE could he be after?”

George thought it pathetic that Randolph should not even contemplate the possibility that Saffron, however nastily, had been actuated by a desire to tell what he believed to be the truth. One need not, of course, think of such a thing nine times out of ten, but it was foolish to deny that it could conceivably happen. All of which, however, George wisely kept to himself.

Suddenly voices upraised near the exit revealed the by now unmistakable element of Saffron’s, his high-pitched tenor involved in an argument. “Of course she’s an artist,” he was shouting. “Not a supreme artist, I grant you, but—”

“What d’you mean?” someone interrupted. “Are you talking like God, or just jealous of her success?”

“I’m proud of her success. It was always my ambition—”

“So you take all the credit?”

George was near enough now to recognize the other man as a young journalist named Hazelton who wrote movie criticism for one of the local papers.

“I take much of the credit,” Saffron was retorting, “because I know she needs someone else to bring out what she has, which is quite enchanting in its own way—”

“Then how can you say she isn’t a great artist?”

“Supreme was the word I used.”

“All right. Supreme. Maybe she isn’t. Maybe she isn’t even great. After your speech tonight we know how you feel about the word. But she’s good —or do you deny that?”

“Of course I don’t, but you don’t know how good she is. How could you? Are you an actor? Have you directed plays? Do you know anything about acting and the theatre?”

This was so brazen that it had to lead to either a fight or laughter. Hazelton chose to laugh. “I won’t argue that, Saffron, except to tell you I’ve seen her act when you had nothing to do with it.”

“In what, may I ask?”

Hazelton mentioned a Broadway comedy that had enjoyed a long run during the later years of the second world war.

Saffron snorted. “Rubbish.”

“But she was good in it.”

“No.”

“Did you see her?”

“My friend, I had the misfortune to spend that period of my life in an internment camp in France while you were gadding about to New York theatres —”

Hazelton laughed again. “I happened to be on leave from the Pacific, but let that pass. The point is—and take my word for it—she was good in that play.”

“And take my word for it she was best of all as Desdemona, before you were born, and as Candida in the Shaw play, and as Mrs. Vincent in a play called The Widow in the Forest which was a great hit when you must have been in knee pants—”

“All of which, Saffron, by sheer coincidence you directed yourself?”

“No coincidence at all. She’s always best when I direct her.”

“Ah—so now we know. She has to have you.”

“Yes. And she knows it. She knows it better than anybody.”

Hazelton moved away still laughing and Saffron completed his exit to the corridor. When he had gone, Hazelton spotted George, whom he knew, and walked over to him. “You heard all that? What a guy! What an evening! Well, it’s something to write about, anyhow. The most exciting thing at a show like this since DeMille called the Chinese Ambassador a Jap—remember that?”

Randolph said: “I suppose it’s no good asking you boys to play it down. A packet of bad publicity for the whole industry…”

Of course it was no use. One might be able to buy a certain amount of good publicity space-wise, but the real news nuggets, the mishaps and misfires of the celebrated, were so precious that no paper could afford to let them go. By that reckoning a table brawl at Ciro’s was always more important than the Nobel Peace Prize.

* * * * *

George went on to the Fulton-Griffins’, where the party was already in full swing and where every new arrival from the Critics’ Dinner was being asked what had really happened.