"For Heaven's sake, don't squabble. After all those young women, I feel weak. There must have been a thousand of them ... I say, Nan, did you invite the whole conservatory?"
"No, but as they were all dying to say they'd been in the same room with Salinski, I went the limit."
"You certainly did."
"Gosh! The size of that star," came Wenny's voice from the window. In his black silhouette Nan was imagining the moulding of the muscles of the arms, the hollow between the shoulders, the hard bulge of calves. She got to her feet. The grey jade beads hung down from her neck as she lifted the teatable out of the way. The little demon in her head was hissing Careful Nancibel, careful Nancibel as she walked over to the window. Her arm hanging limply at her side touched his arm; writhing hump-backed flares danced an insane ballet through her body. Down the street a grindorgan was playing The Wearing of the Green. What wonderful lashes he has, she caught herself thinking, so much nicer than mine. Warm shudders came from his cheek to her cheek, from his moving lips.
"It looks as big as a chrysanthemum," he was saying. She had forgotten the star. She saw it then bristling with green horns of light.
Wenny wore a woolly suit that had been wet, as it had been raining; the smell of it mixed with a tang of tobacco filled her nostrils. She was looking at the star that seemed to palpitate with slow sucking rhythm, afloat in the evening like a jellyfish in shallow bay water. For an instant all her life palpitated hideously with the star. She turned. Her lips almost brushed Wenny's cheek.
"L'étoile du berger," said Fanshaw. His voice rasped through Nan's head.
Her hands were icecold. The little demon in her head with a voice like Aunt M's was whispering: You must meet my niece Nancibel Taylor, she's such a clever violinist. She pulled the shade down sharply in Wenny's face.
"You'ld be there all night mooning at that star," she said and tried to laugh.
They sat down in their chairs again.