Alicia's voice rose again.
"But every one's a crank now, Charles. In this year of grace 1920 it's the only thing to be. You've got to be queer one way or t'other. That's why young Pomfret keeps geese in his flat in Parkside. He feeds them in a sort of manger at the back of his dinin'-room. He likes them for their intelligence, he says. You've simply got to be queer or no one will look at you for a moment. That's why they started the Pyjama Society, Luxmoore and Young Barrax, and some others. You have to swear that you'll never wear anythin' but pyjamas, and they've got special warm ones with fur inside for the cold weather. It's catchin' on like anythin'. It's so comfortable and economical too after the first expense. Then there's the Coloured Hair lot that Lady Bengin started—you all have to wear coloured wigs, green and purple and orange. You put on a new wig for lunch just as you used to put on a new hat. There's a shop opened in Lover Street—Montayne's—specially for these wigs. Expensive, of course, but not much more than a decent hat!"
Closer the pale figures pressed into the room, smiling, wistfully watching, tenderly waiting for their host so soon now to join them.
"Do not leave us! Do not forsake us! We must go with you! the beauty of life comes from us as well as from you, do not desert us! We are your friends! We love you!"
"Well, I'm sure," said Lady Bell-Hall, searching for her crystallized sugar at the bottom of her coffee cup, "I never know whether to believe half the things you say, Alicia."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Tom Duncombe. "You're right, Meg, don't you believe her. You stick to me."
But as the two women went out of the room together one whispered to the other:
"You are kind, Alicia. . . . I'll never forget it."