Thwaites’ embittered vision, were undoubtedly perceived as being ‘all equal’, and so if the Germans went on retreating westward (and if Miss Roach went on approving of it and doing nothing about it) before long we should, all of us, be ‘all equal’.

‘My Lady’s Maid,’ continued Mr. Thwaites, ‘will soon be giving orders to My Lady. And Milord will be Polishing the Pot-boy’s boots.’

Failing to see that he had already over-reached himself in anticipating very far from equal conditions, Mr. Thwaites went on.

‘The Cabby,’ he said, resignedly, ‘will take it unto himself to give the orders, I suppose – and the pantry-boy tell us how to proceed on our ways.’

Still no one had anything to say, and Mr. Thwaites, now carried away both by his own vision and his own style, went on to portray a state of society such as might have recommended itself to the art of the surrealist, or appeared in the dreams of an opium-smoker.

‘The Coalman, no doubt, will see fit to give commands to the King,’ he said, ‘and the Navvy lord it gaily o’er the man of wealth. The Banker will bow the knee to the Crossing-Sweeper, I expect, and the millionaire take his wages from the passing Tramp.’

And there was yet another silence as Mr. Thwaites gazed into the distance seeking further luxuriant images. He had, however, now exhausted himself on this head, and for half a minute one could hear only the clatter of knives and forks upon plates. . .

‘The Lord Forefend,’ said Mr. Thwaites, at last. ‘The Lord, in His grace, Forefend . . .’

And Miss Roach had a fleeting hope in her heart that, with this little prayer, the discussion, or rather monologue, might be terminated. But Mr. Thwaites, suddenly aware of the quietness which had for so long surrounded him, and sensing, perhaps, that it was a little too heavy to be wholly applauding, looked around him and did not hesitate to throw down the gauntlet.

‘At least,’ he said, looking straight at Miss Roach, ‘that’s what you want, isn’t it?’

Miss Roach, putting food into her mouth, now gave as clever an imitation as she was able of one who was not being looked at at all, but knew how futile such an endeavour was.

‘I gather that’s what you want,’ said Mr. Thwaites, ‘isn’t it?’

This was the whole trouble. It was always she who had to bear the brunt, she who had to be made the whipping-boy in public for his private furies and chagrins.

‘No,’ she said, her voice insecure with humiliation and anger, ‘it’s not what I want, Mr. Thwaites.’

‘Oh,’ said Mr. Thwaites, ‘isn’t it? That’s funny. I thought it was.’

Here Miss Steele, who sat at a table by herself, behind Miss Roach but in view of Mr. Thwaites, took a turn at helping her out.

Miss Steele was a thin, quiet woman of about sixty, who used rouge and powder somewhat heavily, whose white, frizzy, well-kept hair had the appearance of being, without being, a wig, and whose whole manner gave the impression of her having had, without her having had, a past. Miss Steele affected infinite shrewd worldly wisdom acquired in this imaginary past, reticence in conversation (she prided herself that she ‘never opened her mouth unless she had something to say’), and the spirit of modernity generally. She was careful to avow at all times her predilection for ‘fun’, for ‘cocktails’, for ‘broadmindedness’, for those who in common with her were ‘cursed’ with a sense of humour, and for the company of young people as opposed to ‘old fogies’ like herself. But she had, in fact, little fun, no cocktails, and no company younger than that furnished by the Rosamund Tea Rooms. She was also advanced in the matter of culture, for she had ‘no time for modern novels’. Instead she read endless Boots’ biographies of historical characters, and was, in fact, a historian. This came in handy, for if you ‘happened to know a little something about History’, you were able to compare present events with those in the past, and roughly see how things would be going in the future. All this, of course, made Mr. Thwaites furious, and he would have used her as the Rosamund Tea Rooms whipping-boy had he not been a little afraid of her and had he not already fixed upon Miss Roach. Behind her not unpitiful and not uncourageous little shams, Miss Steele had, like Mrs.