George took pleasure in lowering the temperature. “No,” he kept on saying, “there were NO blows traded— NOBODY got hurt—it wasn’t half as exciting as you think. Saffron made a silly speech, that’s all.”

“But he insulted Miss Arundel, didn’t he?”

“No. All he said was that Morning Journey was the worst picture he’d ever made, which by implication of course wasn’t so very kind to—”

“But didn’t he say she was a bad actress and couldn’t do a thing without him as director?”

“That was afterwards—and anyhow, that wasn’t what he said at all. As a matter of fact he defended her—he said she was enchanting —”

But George knew that rumour could never be overtaken by fact. He broke off with a shrug: “Ask someone else. I wasn’t the only one there.”

But he also knew that others who had been asked, or would be before the evening was out, were less trained than he in the reporting of evidence, as well as possibly less ethical. He edged away from the crowd and found his usual comfortable corner with a drink which he could make last a long time, and with enough people to enjoy talking to among those who would look for him. He kept thinking of Carey and wondering how soon the twists and exaggerations of what had happened would get to her ears. Several people he talked to mentioned her sympathetically; during the short time she had been on the Coast she seemed to have made herself generally liked. Saffron, by contrast, was in the special dog-house reserved for those whose unpopularity has somehow not deprived them of stature. Diagnosis of him veered from the surly genius to the psychopathic charlatan; anecdotes in proof or disproof were in steady supply as argument grew livelier. An actor who had had a small part in Morning Journey remembered that Miss Arundel had once quarrelled bitterly with Saffron in one of the studio dressing-rooms during the making of the picture.

George acquired for a moment his court-room air. “You heard this quarrel yourself?”

“One of the prop men told me—seems it was the lunch time when nobody else was around. He said Saffron had a gun and was threatening her with it.”

“Why didn’t the prop man do something?”

“Aw, why should he get mixed up in what wasn’t his business? That’s what he said.”

“Even if a man’s threatening a woman with a gun?”

“Apparently she wasn’t hurt.”

“And she didn’t complain?”

“I guess not.”

“And they both went on with the picture after lunch as if nothing had happened?”

“I know—it’s hard to believe. But so was tonight hard to believe —unless you were there.”

“But I WAS there. And already the whole thing’s inflated out of all relation to the truth.”

But again it was no use. George settled down to enjoying himself as a guest at a party; why work for nothing?

Towards midnight someone brought him news which at first he could only think was another rumour—that Carey Arundel had actually arrived at the party. At that stage of the evening, with two or three hundred persons overflowing from a large house into flood-lit gardens, the presence or absence of any individual was not easy to determine outside the range of sight, and George recollected that he was probably the only person to whom Carey’s intention of not coming to the Fulton-Griffin party had been definitely stated only a few hours before. So he doubted the report until he saw her approaching him.

The first thing he noticed was an almost astonishing radiance about her, as if she had given herself some central glow to match the exterior lighting of beauty. She had also changed into another dress much more startling than the one she had worn at the dinner; it had an austere simplicity of line that permitted a special drama of colour and texture. George would say afterwards “a sort of crimson velvet” and leave it at that.

“Hello, Mr. Hare,” she said, smiling.

“Well, Miss Arundel, this IS a surprise. You changed your mind?”

“I often do.”

“So we CAN finish our talk. That’s good.”

“Yes, but let’s go outside. The gardens are lovely.”

He led her through the French windows on to a terrace that stepped down to the swimming-pool where a fair-sized crowd had congregated. He found a side-path leading through a grove of eucalyptus trees.

“I felt I had to come,” she said, “just to show I don’t feel all the things people are thinking I feel.”

“You’re very wise,” he answered, taking her arm. “What Saffron did say, as opposed to all the talk of what he said, wasn’t really against YOU. Therefore there’s nothing for you to be hurt or humiliated about.”

“I’m so glad you think that.”

“Just stupid of him and in bad taste.”

“Oh yes, oh yes, I know it was.”

“Rather odd—coming just after you’d told me his speeches sometimes made you nervous.”

“Yes, wasn’t it odd?”

“You must have had a lot of experience of him.”

She said quietly: “Well, we were married, once.”

He could not conceal the measure of his surprise. “You WERE?”

“Didn’t you know?’

“I didn’t, and as everybody else here must, it’s rather astonishing nobody happened to mention it to me.