As the last of the guests departed Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde reappeared from her little bout of veronal, fresh and exquisite as a seventeenth‑century lyric. The meadow of green glass seemed to burst into flower under her feet as she passed from the lift to the cocktail table.
'You poor angels! she said. 'Did you have the hell of a time with Maltravers? And all those people? I quite forget who asked to come this week‑end. I gave up inviting people long ago, she said, turning to Paul, 'but it didn't make a bit of difference. She gazed into the opalescent depths of her absinthe frappé. 'More and more I feel the need of a husband, but Peter is horribly fastidious.
'Well, your men are all so awfill, said Peter.
'I sometimes think of marrying old Maltravers, said Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde, 'just to get my own back, only "Margot Maltravers" does sound a little too much, don't you think? And if they give him a peerage, he's bound to choose something quite awful….
In the whole of Paul's life no one had ever been quite so sweet to him as Margot Beste‑Chetwynde was during the next few days. Up and down the shining lift shafts, in and out of the rooms, and along the labyrinthine corridors of the great house he moved in a golden mist. Each morning as he dressed a bird seemed to be singing in his heart, and as he lay down to sleep he would pillow his head against a hand about which still hung a delicate fragrance of Margot Beste‑Chetwynde's almost unprocurable scent.
'Paul, dear, she said one day as hand in hand, after a rather fearful encounter with a swan, they reached the shelter of the lake house, 'I can't bear to think of you going back to that awful school. Do, please, write and tell Dr Fagan that you won't.
The lake house was an eighteenth‑century pavilion, built on a little mound above the water. They stood there for a full minute still hand in hand on the crumbling steps.
'I don't quite see what else I could do, said Paul.
'Darling, I could find you a job.
'What sort of job, Margot? Paul's eyes followed the swan gliding serenely across the lake; he did not dare to look at her.