Teresa, as usual, sitting apart, felt in despair—what could be done with such material? A ceaseless shower of insignificant un-co-related events, and casual, ephemeral talk ... she must not submit to the tyranny of detail, the gluttony that wanted everything ... she must mythologise, ruthlessly prune ... hacking away through the thick foliage of words, chopping off the superfluous characters, so that at last the plot should become visible.
Anna, rather resenting that what she looked upon as a children’s book should be commandeered by the grown-ups for their own silly talk in which she could not share, went off to the billiard-room to play herself tunes on the gramophone.
Jasper had long since sneaked off with ’Snice for a second tea in the kitchen.
Then Guy left the group of Anstey amateurs and came and sat down beside Teresa.
“Have you been reading anything?” he asked; and without waiting for an answer, and slightly colouring, he said eagerly: “I’ve been learning Spanish, you know.”
“Have you? Do you like it?”
And that was all! How often had he rehearsed the conversation, or, rather, the disquisition, that ought at this point to have arisen: “Those who know the delicate sophistication of Lazarillo de Tormes feel less amazement when from an Amadis-pastoral Euphues-rotted Europe an urbane yet compelling voice begins very quietly: ‘In a village of la Mancha, the name of which I do not care to recollect, there lived not long ago a knight’....”
And surely she might have shown a little emotion—was it not just a little touching that entirely for her sake he should have taken the trouble to learn Spanish?
“Well, what have you been reading in Spanish—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”
Though this was only a joke, he felt sore and nettled, and said sulkily: “What’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”