"Do you know who Edward Adrian is?" Lucy asked her.
"Certainly I do," O'Donnell said. "I've had a rave on him ever since I went to see him at the age of twelve in Belfast."
"You seem to be the only person in this room either to know or to admire him."
"Ah, the heathen," said O'Donnell, casting a scornful eye on the gathering-and it seemed to Lucy that O'Donnell was suspiciously bright about the eyes, as if she had been crying. "It's in Larborough I would be this minute, sitting at his feet, if it wasn't practically the end of term and I lacked the price of a seat."
And if, thought Lucy pitying, you hadn't felt that backing out of this party would be put down to your being the only one present not yet to have a post. She liked the girl who had dried her eyes and thought of the bedroom slipper excuse and come gaily to the party that was none of hers.
"Well," said Stewart, busy with the wire of the cork, "now that O'Donnell is here we can open the bottle."
"Good heavens, champagne!" O'Donnell said.
The wine came foaming into the thick blunt tooth-glasses, and they turned to Lucy expectantly.
"To Stewart in Scotland, to Thomas in Wales, to Dakers at Ling Abbey," she said.
They drank that.