Alan apparently considered this remark beneath contempt, for he turned his shoulder to the rest of the room, and fixing the Prince with a stern and penetrating gaze, uttered one word: 'Tchekhov!"
Vicky, who thought she had been out of the limelight for long enough, and had once seen The Cherry Orchard, said thrillingly: "The psychology of humanity! Too, too marvellous!"
"Oh, Vicky, you're doing your hair a new way!" exclaimed Janet, suddenly noticing it.
"Yes," said Vicky, firmly putting the conversation back on to an elevated plane. "It's an expression of mood. Tonight I felt as though some other, stranger soul had entered into me. I had to fit myself to it. Had to!"
"You look beautiful!" Alan said, in a low voice. "I sometimes think there must be Russian blood in you. You're so sensitive, if you know what I mean."
"Storm-tossed," said Vicky unhappily.
"No, no, duchinka!" said the Prince, amused. "I find instead that you are youth-tossed."
"One must believe in youth," said Alan intensely.
With the exception of Vicky, none of his audience showed much sign of agreeing with this dictum. White told him that he talked too much, and Steel said that, speaking for himself, he had no use for Tchekhov.
"Good God!" exclaimed Alan, profoundly disgusted. "That mastery of under-statement! That fluid style! When I saw The Three Sisters, for instance, it absolutely shattered me!"