And, too, many another quarrel was tactfully smoothed for Antony that night and from that night; for there were some of our table that night whose first surprise at his entrance had held some repugnance in it, men who thought him "really a bit too much," women who weren't Wesleyans but would not have remarked him in an empty street. But Red Antony had certainly won—what little of that kind of thing there is to win—or to lose, for the matter of that. And if ever a man who was worth his weight in food and drink, that was Antony that night, on the top of his form from floor to ceiling, from midnight to daylight! And Roger only less so—just a little colourless he seemed beside this sudden brother of his. It was strange to think that I was the only one among them all who had ever seen the brothers together before—and that more than eighteen years before, in Roger's last term at school! I tried to find from his face now something of what he thought, but caught no more than an occasional sidewise smile at his brother.

I taxed Iris about her plot with only a laughing, "Well, it was a very good idea, anyway."

"Oh, if I could only claim the credit for it!" she feigned to sigh. "It was Antony's, you see."

The devil it was, I only thought! And as at last I went home found some unrest from the discovery, I was too drunk to know exactly why; and for all the fun of the night I went at last to bed quite bothered about the whole thing—and awoke not less so. I ought to have been pleased, of course: Antony had splendidly got his way and might now make good, and Iris might get the benefit of the new friendship between the brothers. But one never knew what those infernal brothers were at, they both had such a damned sinister way of taking their pleasures! And I really had rather a grievance about the thing, too, I felt entitled to be hurt—for, after all, I'd been a pretty good friend to 'em both, and in long-passed years had time over again tried to bring them together and make them see the error of their ways—and here they suddenly come together without as much as a "by your leave!"

I rang Iris up at about lunch time, and a tired voice from her bed told me to go about my business and "come to dinner to-night, if you like. Roger's asked Antony...." I didn't go simply because my constitution is of this and not the eighteenth century. But I would have liked to, if only to see what those two might be at, or if they were at anything at all. And as for Iris—well, thought I (those late nights never really agreed with me, you understand), a wiser than I has said that it's in the nature of women and cats to scratch the hand that tries to free them from a trap.

VII

Iris was in a flutter. At least no other word can describe the quick gaiety of her entrance, the hidden smile in her eyes, and then, as she sat down, her sudden air of disinterested thought—for all the world as though I hadn't seen her for three days, as though she hadn't really, anything at all to tell me! As sometimes unavoidably happened when some press of work kept me dallying more busily than usual about editors, publishers, or managers—which sounds so much more important than ever the results were—we had not been able to meet since the night of the party; and I had had to restrain my curiosity about both her "relations-by-marriage" until this fourth afternoon: when, as I've said, she as nearly fluttered in as she could, and brought into my room a sudden breath of memorable moments, how long ago! when I had so often seen her with the light of a new idea, a new theory, an old book, or a new friend, in her eyes—a gay, lovely Iris, whose sanity and illusions were marvellously mixed in a wild and tender profusion, like sedate tulips and wanton poppies in a tawny sunlight. But the past two years had a little pruned her carelessness, and had made her mischief less sudden and more shapely, for she had come by a certain depth of mockery....

But at this very moment she was as she had once been, pointing out that I was one of the reasons why "girls go wrong in London. For if I had taken any notice of your pompous warnings to let Roger and Antony be as they were, I would have gone through life with a fixed idea of how horrible men are to each other. Whereas, you know, they aren't that at all—for instance, those two are quite divine together, and very pleased to have made up their absurd quarrel. And as I look at them it's very difficult to believe that all your talk about them wasn't a nightmare, or a bad short story badly translated from the Russian."

In fact it was quite remarkable, she told me, how good they seemed to be for each other; fancifully, as though each one had taken on something of the other's quality—Antony seeming to have become more intelligent and balanced, and Roger more genial, more—well—human. Which, of course, made everything much more pleasant for her....

But I had to protest when she said that Antony seemed so interested in talking and listening to his brother that he noticed her very little; that, in fact, she had been rather shocked to see that he wasn't now wasting any time over any remnants of good looks that might still be left to her since he had left England.