“No,” he said quietly. “I can’t.”
There was a silence.
The man smiled thoughtfully, staring straight ahead. With a faint frown
the girl regarded the leisurely disintegration of the logs in the grate.
The distant throb of ragtime filtered into the room, only to subside, as
though abashed, before the stately lecture of a Vulliamy clock.
“Let us talk,” said Eve, “of the past.”
“Good,” said Jeremy. “I’ll begin. If I’d been brought up to be a
plumber, instead of a diplomat——”
“Oh, I wish you had,” said Eve. “My bath’s gone wrong again.”
“What, not the Roman?”
“The same,” said Eve.
“There you are,” said Broke. “I told you not to have it. You cannot
introduce a relic of the Stone Age into a super-flat. It can’t be done.
If you must have a circus leading out of your bedroom, the only thing to
do is to set it right up and then build a house round it.”
“We’re off,” said Eve, bubbling.
Jeremy swallowed.
“What’s the trouble?” he demanded.
“Won’t empty,” said Eve. “I’m—I’m having it taken away.”
“Taken away?” cried Broke.
“Well, filled in or something. I don’t know what the process will be. I
simply said it was to be washed out and an ordinary bath put in its
place.”
“Why on earth?”
“Because experience has shown me that your advice was good. Between you
and me, it nearly always is—though why you keep on giving it me when I
only chuck it away, Heaven only knows. _I_ should have got mad months
ago. I think you must be very—very strong, Jeremy. At least, I’m very
conscious of being the—the weaker vessel.”
“A most appropriate sensation.”
Eve shot him a lightning glance.