and C. to the effect that cheque follows in a few days. (Hope they may think I have temporarily mislaid cheque-book.)

Black-and-gold as rearranged by Mademoiselle very satisfactory, but am obliged to do my hair five times owing to wave having been badly set. Robert unfortunately comes in just as I am using bran-new and expensive lip-stick, and objects strongly to result.

(Query: If Robert could be induced to go to London rather oftener, would he perhaps take broader view of these things?)

Am convinced we are going to be late, as Robert has trouble in getting car to start, but he refuses to be agitated. Am bound to add that subsequent events justify this attitude, as we arrive before anybody else, also before Lady B. is down. Count at least a dozen Roman hyacinths growing in bowls all over the drawing-room. (Probably grown by one of the gardeners, whatever Lady B. may say. Resolve not to comment on them in any way, but am conscious that this is slightly ungenerous.)

Lady B. comes down wearing silver lace frock that nearly touches the floor all round, and has new waist-line. This may or not be becoming, but has effect of making everybody else’s frock look out-of-date.

Nine other people present besides ourselves, most of them staying in house. Nobody is introduced. Decide that a lady in what looks like blue tapestry is probably responsible for _Symphony in Three Sexes_.

Just as dinner is announced Lady B. murmurs to me: “I’ve put you next to Sir William. He’s interested in _water-supplies_, you know, and I thought you’d like to talk to him about local conditions.”

Find, to my surprise, that Sir W. and I embark almost at once on the subject of Birth Control. Why or how this topic presents itself cannot say at all, but greatly prefer it to water-supplies. On the other side of the table, Robert is sitting next to _Symphony in Three Sexes_. Hope he is enjoying himself.

Conversation becomes general. Everybody (except Robert) talks about books. We all say (a) that we have read _The Good Companions_, (b) that it is a very _long_ book, (c) that it was chosen by the Book of the Month Club in America and must be having immense sales, and (d) that American sales are What Really Count. We then turn to _High Wind in Jamaica_ and say (a) that it is quite a short book, (b) that we hated—or, alternatively, adored—it, and (c) that it Really _Is_ exactly _Like_ Children. A small minority here surges into being, and maintains No, they Cannot Believe that any children in the World wouldn’t ever have _noticed_ that John wasn’t there any more. They can swallow everything else, they say, but not _that_. Discussion very active indeed. I talk to pale young man with horn-rimmed glasses, sitting at my left-hand, about Jamaica, where neither of us has ever been. This leads—but cannot say how—to stag-hunting, and eventually to homeopathy. (_Mem_.: Interesting, if time permitted, to trace train of thought leading on from one topic to another. Second, and most disquieting idea: perhaps no such train of thought exists.) Just as we reach interchange of opinions about growing cucumbers under glass, Lady B.