I am unable to explain how it was that at first I was quite incurious to know what people had thought of that extraordinary collapse of mine, and why the effect of that song on Kitty Windus, for example, should have been less marked than its effect on myself. For Kitty, though she had screamed, and babbled incoherent things that probably I have never been told about, had sustained no lasting injury. An icy breath had passed over everybody there, and nobody, I thought, would be so morbid as to push their inquiries into the varying degrees of iciness. I may say at once that I thought quite rightly. Nobody has, not even (so far as I am aware) Miriam Levey.
It was from Aunt Angela, of course, that I learned what that first question of the Broadstairs doctor had been; and it brought me face to face with that so easily assumed resolution of mine rather sharply. By mere luck Evie had escaped that shock of the party, but the original one, the seven or eight years' old one, remained. That I might know exactly to what extent this might affect my determination, I had the Broadstairs doctor to meet my own more distinguished one. I told this one of the tragedy of Evie's former engagement, and related the affair of the gramophone. He looked grave.
"You must see that she doesn't get another shock," he said.
Evie herself was not made aware that the visit had more than an ordinary significance.
But Louie's advice now seemed rather beside the mark.
I saw Louie daily now; and whether it was that she had been able to entrench herself behind her work in my absence, or had found some modus vivendi midway between that ecstasy of the night when she had supported me in a Chelsea doorway and the anguished outbreak of that other evening in the Models' Club, or however it was, my fears for the impossibility of the situation now appeared to have been groundless. Whitlock, indeed, saw more of her than I. He spoke exceedingly favourably of her. She used quickness and common-sense in her work, he said, and, when he had half-a-dozen things to do at once, did not take down a remark interpolated to somebody else as part of the letter he was dictating. I was not surprised to learn that she "flashed" intelligently at unexplained meanings. She converted Whitlock's rapid mumbled instructions into (commercial) English with ease, and had already attracted Pepper's notice.
I don't know whether it has struck you that Evie, who had given it as a sufficient reason for renewing her intimacy with Miriam Levey and Kitty Windus that they had been at the old Business College in Holborn together, had never once urged the same thing on behalf of Louie Causton. It was not that I wanted her to do so; as a matter of fact I very much preferred them apart. And I thought I saw the reason for Evie's silence. Louie trailed an unhappy story behind her. Louie had been a model. Aunt Angela had not asked her to her party. If there was any coolness between Miriam Levey and Louie, which now might well be, Evie would naturally be disposed to take the part of the former. I don't mean to say that she looked down on Louie. It was only later that I learned that she wasted a thought on Louie. I only mean that their paths lay in different directions, and that Evie had hitherto appeared content that they should do so.
It was in a roundabout way that I discovered that Louie had a place in Evie's thoughts. Acting under my doctor's orders, I had begun to come home early in the afternoon, seldom working after tea; and I entered the drawing-room one afternoon to find a couple of her Broadstairs acquaintances, a Mr and Mrs Smithson, with her. Smithson was, I think, a cycle agent; she was an openwork-stockinged, flirtatious little woman, for ever making eyes, and apparently under the impression that all conversation would languish unless she took the greater part of it upon herself. I imagine it had been she who had sent Evie one or two vulgar seaside post cards that, had they been addressed to me, would have gone straight into the fire. It appeared that they knew Peddie slightly, my old Jun. Ex. Con. of the F.B.C., and now Whitlock's abstract clerk; and I was not disposed to congratulate Peddie on the acquaintance.
They were just leaving as I arrived, so that we only exchanged a few words; indeed, the ringing of the telephone I had had fixed up in my study gave me an excuse to cut our leave-taking short. I went to the instrument; it was Louie Causton with a message from Whitlock; and I gave my instructions and returned to Evie.
Now Jackie, who was just beginning to babble and notice things, was greatly interested in the telephone, and I entered the drawing-room just in time to hear him make some remark about "plitty typies." As I took no notice, Jackie repeated the unchildlike expression. Evie was pouring me out more tea.