He left me thinking that the chances are that if I live on another twenty years, to be ninety—which I trust may not happen, even with the assistance of the new monkey-gland treatment—and I still retain a few faculties of hearing and speech and the simulacrum of a sympathetic heart, some young spark of the future will endeavour to engage my interest to help him in his courtship of Rose’s daughter—some young spark not yet born, desiring a bride not yet born. That would seem to be my destiny. But perhaps by 1940 there will be no such tedious preliminaries: nothing but capture and possession—and awakening. Or will the rhythm of life have reasserted itself and old-fashioned prejudices have returned? We move in circles.
During dinner that evening I said to Rose: “There was a young fellow here this afternoon asking after you.”
“Archie Sebright, I suppose,” she said.
“No,” I said. “Some one who dances with you, and—”
“Reggie Saunderson, of course.”
“No.”
“Who was it, then?”
“He had a very small moustache,” I said, “and he came in an even smaller car.”
“Oh, Jack Nimmo.”
“No,” I said. “He had purple socks, with clocks, and showed too much of them.”