He dressed himself, removed as far as possible the stains of sorrow and exhaustion from his face, and plunged out to take his place in the restless, ill-managed pageant of the pavements, where threads are tangled, characters lost, and cues unheard. He was going to a semi-literary gathering at a friend's flat in Coleherne Gardens. He did not look forward to it particularly, but it might help him in his twofold struggle—to win Janey in the future and forget her for the present.
The room was crowded. Hallidie was presiding over a mixed assembly of more-or-less celebrities with that debonair self-confidence which had helped make him a famous novelist in spite of his novels. There were one or two great ones present, just to raise the level—he did not introduce them to Lowe. He knew exactly whom they would like to meet, and Lowe, he felt, would let the conversation down, just when it was becoming yeasty with literary wit. There were other people in the room who showed a tendency to do this, and Hallidie had carefully introduced them to one another, so that they could all fail mutually in a well-upholstered corner.
"Ah—Lowe. Glad to see you. Come, let me introduce you to Miss Strife"—and sweeping Quentin past the renowned author of Life and How to Bear It, and Dompter, the little, insignificant, world-famous sea-poet, he presented him to a very young girl, sitting alone on a divan.
Quentin's first feeling was one of outrage. What right had Hallidie to drag him away from the pulse of things, so vital to his struggling ambition, and condemn him to atrophy with a flapper. He stared down at her disapprovingly—then something in her wistful look disarmed him.
"I believe our fathers are neighbours in the country," he said stiffly.
He did not notice her reply. It was not that which made him stop his furious glances at Hallidie and sit down beside her. She was evidently very young. There was a lack of sophistication about her hair-dressing which proclaimed an early attempt, her frock was simple and girlish, her face alert and innocent.
Quentin found himself gulping in his throat, almost as if tears had found their way there at last; for he suddenly realised how new and beautiful it was to sit beside a woman and not be tormented. As he looked at her delicate profile, the pure curves of her chin and collarless neck, his heart became suddenly still. There was a great calm. Peace had come down on him like water. Simplicity rested on his parched thoughts like rain-clouds on a desert. He seemed suddenly to come back to life, to the world, and to see them in the calm, usual light of every day. The racket, the glare, the sense of being in an abnormal relation to his surroundings—all were gone. For the first time in his complicated, sophisticated, catastrophic life, Quentin Lowe was at peace.
IV
It was late in June. A haze wimpled the pine-trees of Shovelstrode, and the heather between their trunks was in full flower. The old house shimmered in the haze and sunshine, and stared away to yellow fields of buttercups and distances of brown and blue.
Tony and Awdrey Strife were lying in the shadow of a chestnut on the lawn. Two young gracious figures in muslins, they lay with their chins on their hands, and looked away towards the golden weald. They did not speak much, for the post had just come, and they were reading their letters. Awdrey giggled to herself a good deal over hers, but Tony was serious—the corners of her mouth even drooped a little, but whether from sorrow or tenderness or both it would be hard to say. Suddenly she made an exclamation.