That night as Paul marked his place in The Golden Bough, and, switching off his light, turned over to sleep he thought of the young man a few bedrooms away, lying motionless in the darkness, his hands at his sides, his legs stretched out, his eyes closed, and his brain turning and turning regularly all the night through, drawing in more and more power, storing it away like honey in its intricate cells and galleries, till the atmosphere about it became exhausted and vitiated and only the brain remained turning in the darkness.
So Margot Beste‑Chetwynde wanted to marry Otto Silenus, and in another corner of this extraordinary house she lay in a drugged trance, her lovely body cool and fragrant and scarcely stirring beneath the bedclothes; and outside in the park a thousand creatures were asleep, and beyond that, again, were Arthur Potts, and Mr Prendergast, and the Llanabba stationmaster. Quite soon Paul fell asleep. Downstairs Peter Beste‑Chetwynde mixed himself another brandy and soda and turned a page in Havelock Ellis, which, next to The Wind in the Willows, was his favourite book.
* * *
The aluminium blinds shot up, and the sun poured in through the vita‑glass, filling the room with beneficent rays. Another day had begun at King's Thursday.
From his bathroom window Paul looked down on to the terrace. The coverings had been removed, revealing the half‑finished pavement of silver and scarlet. Professor Silenus was already out there directing two workmen with the aid of a chart.
The week‑end party arrived at various times in the course of the day, but Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde kept to her room while Peter received them in the prettiest way possible. Paul never learned all their names, nor was he ever sure how many of them there were. He supposed about eight or nine, but as they all wore so many different clothes of identically the same kind, and spoke in the same voice, and appeared so irregularly at meals, there may have been several more or several less.
The first to come were The Hon. Miles Malpractice and David Lennox, the photographer. They emerged with little shrieks from an Edwardian electric brougham and made straight for the nearest looking‑glass.
In a minute the panotrope was playing, David and Miles were dancing, and Peter was making cocktails. The party had begun. Throughout the afternoon new guests arrived, drifting in vaguely or running in with cries of welcome just as they thought suited them best.
Pamela Popham, square‑jawed and resolute as a big-game huntress, stared round the room through her spectacles, drank three cocktails, said: 'My God! twice, cut two or three of her friends, and stalked off to bed.
'Tell Olivia I've arrived when she comes, she said to Peter.