“What is he?”
“He’s—he’s a postscript. The letter came this morning. Now don’t either of you desert.” He disappeared, leaving the terrace stricken. The rest of the morning, lunch, perhaps the whole day ... Simpson. His voice returned a moment later, encouraging, as if shepherding an invalid, across the garden and round the angle. A very tall young man, in a blue serge suit, a pink collar and a face sunburnt all over, an even red.
He was sitting upright in a headlong silence, holding on to the thoughts with which he had come. But they were being scattered. He had held them through the introductions and Hypo’s witty distribution of drinks. But now the bright air rang with the rapid questions, volleyed swiftly upon the beginnings of the young man’s meditative answers, and he was sitting alone in the circle in a puzzled embarrassment, listening, but not won by Hypo’s picture of Norwich, not joining in the expansion and the laughter, aware only of the scattering of his precious handful of thoughts. Towards lunch-time Hypo carried him off to the study.
“Exit the postscript,” said Miss Prout. Charmingly ... dropping back into her pose, but talkatively, a kindliness in the blue eyes gazing out to sea. Again she bemoaned her return to London, but added at once a little picture of her old servant; the woman’s gladness at getting her back again.
“Only until the end of the week,” said Miriam seeing the old servant, perpetually left alone, getting older. Sad. Left out. But what an awful way of living in London; alone with one old servant. A brilliant light came into Miss Prout’s eyes. She was looking fixedly along the terrace.
“He wouldn’t stay to lunch.” Hypo, alone and gay. “He’s done with me. Given me up. Gone away a wise young man.”
“He was appalling.”
“You didn’t hear him, Miriam.”
“I saw him.”
“You didn’t hear him on the subject of his guild.”