"Norah's environment did not help her to keep in touch with her husband. In his absence she was absorbed into the circle of her family, by none of whom was Archie known or appreciated. A different atmosphere was created in which Archie drew no breath. New points of view and standards of life presented themselves to her young eyes. This was her first taste of London, and a strange world lay at her feet. No wonder her head was a little dizzied. She drove an ambulance by day, and by night she danced. Her beauty, vivacity and birth made her acceptable to that set which won the war by going to charity matinées. She did not like it, but found its glitter stimulating. At the houses of her relations she met celebrated, handsome, and amusing men. And, in truth, though the comparison never presented itself, they were a good deal better company than poor, silent Archie.
After three years of this the war ended, and Archie came home. He was far too devoted to Norah to ask her to alter her way of life, and while his gratuity lasted, he took her to dinners, theatres, races, dances, night clubs; all that hostesses, restaurateurs and impresarios pass off on us for 'pleasure.'
I don't suppose Archie showed at his best in these surroundings. He had scant small talk, and probably an indifferent tailor.
During these weeks, disillusionment first reared its head. For both their sakes I hope the process was gradual, but I think passion would desert Norah's quick heart as capriciously as it visited it.
Archie must have looked forward to the time when his gratuity would be exhausted and the two-pences for the merry-go-round would no longer be forthcoming. Then they would have to retire to Edinburgh and live on their small income, while Archie made his way at the Scottish Bar, like his fathers before him. Unfortunately, his nature was to keep his views to himself. He did not disclose them until one evening at supper at Giro's. The disclosure was disastrous.
They had dined, a trifle noisily, at the mansion of a South African Jew, whose acquaintance Norah had made during the war when only aliens could procure luxuries. I had known their host before he became respectable—too well, indeed, to be dropped—and had also been invited.
The war had left me lame, and Norah, in whom modish hardness hid a compassionate heart, insisted on picking me up in her taxi. She was looking, I thought, very adorable. Her frock was made of some sort of shot silk, very bright. It fitted her straight little figure closely down to her waist, spreading out below in scalloped flounces. The suggestion was a fin-de-siècle shepherdess, strayed from Arcady to Park Lane.
Over her shoulders hung a cloak lined with green brocade. Its upright collar of monkey fur framed with spikes the piquancy of her face. Her high cheekbones were rouged, her wide mouth drooped a little at the corners.
Archie made a good background. He was slight and dark. Typically, he wore a dinner jacket instead of the tail-coat that the rest of the party would sport. His hair was close-cropped and grew high on his forehead. His face was clean shaven and rather weather-beaten, with a well formed nose and an obstinate chin. His supra-orbital sinus, as the anatomists call the bar of the eyebrows, was pronounced and his grey eyes seemed sunken beneath it. He looked uncommonly wiry, giving an impression of 'no waste'—no spare flesh, no spare words, no spare emotions. Condemning emotion he substituted Reason, thereby coming more of a mucker than the ordinary irrational man. His anxiety to be reasonable gave him an irresolute air. He was still balancing questions which years before ordinary men had settled by instinct, prejudice or indifference.
After dinner we went to the last act of the last revue, though why the discomfort of a box should be sought for conversation that could perfectly well be held at home, I never know. When the theatre was over, and the party had broken up, I heard Norah tell Archie she was too tired to go home and wanted supper.