COMMEMORATION
"Oxford ... the seat of one of the most ancient and
celebrated universities in Europe, is situated amid
picturesque environs at the confluence of the Cherwell
and the Thames.... Oxford is on the whole more attractive
than Cambridge to the ordinary visitor.... The best time
for a visit is the end of the Summer term.... This period
of mingled work and play (the latter predominating) is
named _Commemoration_.... It is almost needless to add
that an introduction to a 'Don' will greatly add to the
visitor's pleasure and profit."
KARL BAEDECKER: "Handbook for Travellers: Great Britain."
Of the weeks that passed between my return to London from Brandon
Court and our departure from London to Oxford, I have only the most
indistinct recollection. My engagement book earned many honourable
scars before I carried it away into my present exile, but for May and
the first half of June there appears a black, undecipherable smudge
that my memory tells me should represent a long succession of late
nights and crowded days. Individual items are blurred out of
recognition; my general sense of the period is that I pretended to be
preternaturally young, and was punished by being made to feel
prematurely old.
It was the busiest part of the London season, and Gladys appeared to
receive cards for an average of three balls a night on five nights of
the week. I accompanied her everywhere, growing gradually broken to
the work and relieved of my more serious responsibilities by the fact
that Philip Roden was too busy at the House to waste his nights in a
ball-room. We seemed to move in the midst of a stage army, the same
few hundred men, women, and dowagers reappearing in an endless
march-past. With the advent of the big hotels, hospitality had changed
in character since the days when I counted myself a Londoner: there
was more of it and it was less hospitable. The rising generation, and
more particularly the female portion of it, seemed to have taken
matters into its own hands.
Regularly each morning, after a late breakfast, Gladys would set me to
write a series of common-form letters: "Dear Mr. Blank," I would say,
"My niece and I shall be so pleased if you will dine with us here
to-night at 8.30 and go on to Lady Anonym's ball." Then Gladys would
bring unknowing guest and unknown hostess into communication. "Can I
speak to Lady Anonym?" I would hear her call down the telephone. "Oh,
good morning! I say, do you think you could _possibly_ do with another
man for your ball to-night? Honest? It _is_ sweet of you. Oh, quite a
nice thing--Mr. Incognito Blank, 101, Utopia Chambers, St. James.
Thanks, most awfully. Oh no, not _him_, he's the most awful stiff;
this is a dear thing. Well, I would have, only he's only just got back
to England, he's been shooting big game...."
This was the retail method. In the case of intimate friends, Gladys
would be encouraged to send in her own list of desirable invitees.
Because I am old-fashioned and unacquainted with English ways, I trust
I am not inaccessible to new ideas. I would carry the policy of
promiscuity to its logical conclusion. An announcement in the _Times_
with draft _ménu_, name of band and programme of music--even a
placard outside Claridge's--would save endless postage and stationery,
and could not pack the ball-room tighter than on a dozen occasions I
remember. Hostesses who believe that numbers are the soul of
hospitality, could be certain beforehand of the success of their
efforts; superior young men would continue to remark, "Society gettin'
very mixed, what?" exactly as they have done ever since I entered my
first ball-room at the age of seventeen. Everybody, in short, would be
pleased.
We saw a good deal of Sylvia during those weeks, as for reasons of her
own she would frequently drop in at Pont Street and conduct her share
of the arrangements over our telephone. Occasionally Gladys would be
called in as an accomplice, I would hear "Mr. Aintree's" name added to
Lady Anonym's list, and Gladys would remark with fine carelessness,
"Oh, just send him the card, if you will; don't bother to say who it
comes from." The Seraph may have suspected, but he never had
documentary proof of the originating cause of some of his invitations.
In making our arrangements for Commemoration, I decided to take the
greater part of my charges to Oxford by road. Robin, of course, was
still in residence, and Philip promised to come down by the first
possible train. Gladys, Sylvia, the Seraph, and a _pis-aller_ of
Robin's named Cynthia Bargrave constituted my flock; we motored
quietly down to Henley, where we lunched and chartered a houseboat for
the Regatta, and arrived in Oxford with ample time for the three girls
to have a comfortable rest before dinner. I made rather a point of
this, as they were going to have three very tiring days and would
naturally wish to look their best; moreover, I wanted to roam round
the town with the Seraph.
Even Oxford, that I thought could never alter, had changed during my
years of absence. The little, nameless back-street colleges I would
gladly sacrifice to the Destroyer, for they serve no purpose beyond
that of breeding proctors, and I know we counted it an indignity to be
fined by the scion of a college we had to reach by cab. But the High
should have been inviolate; there wanted no new colleges breaking
through its immemorial sides.... Univ. men, standing at their lodge
gate and looking northward, have told me the High already contains one
college in excess.
While the Seraph sought out Robin's rooms in Canterbury, I wandered
through the college--guiltily, I admit--looking for traces of a
popular outbreak that occurred when a ball took place at Blenheim and
House men asked in vain for leave to attend it. In time I came to my
own old rooms in Tom, and gazed rather in sorrow than anger at the
strange new name painted over the door. Twice my fingers went to the
handle, twice I told myself that "Mr. R.F. Davenant" had as much right
to privacy as I should have claimed in his place.... I wandered out
through Tom Gate, across St. Aldates, and down Brewer Street to those
pleasant digs in Micklem Hall, where I once spent an all-too-short
twelve months. Then I returned to college, crept furtively back to the
old familiar door, knocked, listened, entered....
"R.F. Davenant" was far more civil than I should have been at a like
intrusion. He showed me round the rooms, offered me whisky and
cigarettes, wanted to know when I had been up, whether I was going to
the Gaudy.... We were friends in a minute. I liked his fair,
neatly-parted hair and clean, fresh colouring; I liked his Meissonier
artist proofs; I liked the way the left back leg of the sofa
collapsed unless you underpinned it with a Liddle and Scott. Not a
thing was changed but the photographs on the mantelpiece. I walked
over and surveyed them critically. Then one of those things happened
that convince me an idle Quixotic Providence is watching over my least
movements: I was staring at the picture of a girl on horseback when he
volunteered the information that it was his sister.
"Your married sister?" I suggested.
"Do you know her?"
He fed me on Common-room tea and quarter-pound wedges of walnut cake.
Joyce was coming up for two of the three balls I was attending, coming
unprovided with partners to chaperone some girl who had captured her
brother's wandering fancy. These elder sisters earn more crowns than
they are ever accorded; it seemed that Joyce who trampled on the world
would stretch herself out to be trampled on by her heedless only
brother. I wonder wherein the secret lies.
"Come and dine," suggested Dick Davenant.
I told him of my own party, and lost no time in working the Cumberland
days with his father for all they were worth. What happened to the
Seraph I never discovered. As I hurried back to the Randolph for
dinner, Robin met me with an apology in advance for the dull evening
before me.
"'Fraid you'll have rather a rotten time," he opined. "I wish you had
let me find you some old snag or other."
"I shall be all right, Robin," I said.
"There's sure to be bridge _somewhere_. Or look here, what about a
roulette-board? Combine business with pleasure--what?"
"I shall be able to amuse myself," I assured him.
Our dinner that night was one of the gayest meals I have eaten; we
were all expectant, excited, above our usual form--with the single
exception of Philip. If I were a woman, I suppose I should notice
these things; as it was I put his silent preoccupation down to
overwork. When he approached Robin with other-world gentleness and
suggested a stroll up St. Giles after dinner "just to keep me company,
old boy," I ought to have suspected something; but it was not till the
Seraph, smoking a lonely cigar, murmured something about "_Consul
videat ne respublica detrimentum capiat_," that I saw my authority
over Gladys was being threatened.
The girls had been despatched for their last mysterious finishing
touches, and we had the hall of the Randolph to ourselves.
"What the deuce ought I to do, Seraph?" I asked.
"What _can_ you do?"
"I don't know."
"Why do anything?"
That is the question I always ask myself when I have no definite idea
what is expected of me.
"I wish he'd had the consideration to wait till my brother came back,"
I grumbled.
"These little emotional crises never _do_ wait till we're ready for
them, do they?"
"From the fulness of the heart...."
"Oh, pardon me, I was not speaking of myself."
"I thought you were."
The Seraph shook his head at me.
"No, you didn't. You aren't thinking of me, or Gladys, or Philip, or
any one but your own self."
I hypnotised a waiter into taking my order for Benedictine.
"No emotional crises have come _my_ way," I protested.
"Something very curious has happened to you since we parted this
afternoon."
I accounted for every moment of my time since our arrival in Oxford.
"Why didn't you tell me that before?" he exclaimed when I mentioned my
chance meeting with Dick Davenant. "Joyce coming up for the ball? Will
you...? No! sorry."
"Will I what?"
"It's no business of mine."
"Why d'you start talking about it, then? Will I what?"
The Seraph knocked the ash off his cigar, finished his coffee, and sat
silent. I repeated my question.
"Well...." he hesitated nervously. "Are you going to propose to her
to-night?"
"Really, Seraph!"
"You're going to--some time or other...."
"Don't talk nonsense!"
"...I was wondering if it would be to-night."
I felt myself growing rather annoyed and uncomfortable.
"Not very good form to talk like this," I said stiffly. "After all,
she's a friend of yours and mine. A joke's all very well...."
"But I'm quite serious!"
"My dear Seraph, d'you appreciate that I've met the girl once--a few
weeks ago--and once only since she was a child of five?"
"Oh yes. And do you remember my telling you what was bringing you back
to England? Do you remember the impression she made on you that night?
If you're going to marry her...."
"Seraph, drop it!"
He withdrew into his shell, and we smoked without speaking until I
began to be sorry for snubbing him.
"I didn't mean to be rude," I said apologetically. "But she's a nice
girl; I may see her to-night for all I know to the contrary, and this
coupling of names.... You see my point?"
The Seraph suddenly developed a nervous, excited earnestness.
"Let me give you a word of advice. If you're going to propose to
her--oh, all right; if X. is going to propose to her, he'd better do
it now--before the crash comes. There's going to be a very big crash;
she's going down under it. If you--if X. proposed now, she might be
got out of the way before it's too late. You--X. won't like to see the
woman he's going to marry...."
"X. marries her then?" I asked in polite incredulity. "Oh, he should
certainly lose no time."
"She may not accept you at once."
"Come and get your coat, Seraph."
"But she will later."
"Come and get your coat," I repeated.
"Ah--you don't believe me--well...."
I gave him my two hands and pulled him out of his chair.
"Can you foretell the future?" I asked with a scepticism worthy of
Nigel Rawnsley. "What time shall I breakfast to-morrow? What shall I
have for supper to-night? What tie shall I wear next Friday
fortnight?"
The Seraph shook his head without answering.
"Very well, then," I said decisively.
"But you don't know either."
Of course he was right.
"I may not know _now_," I said, "but I shall make up my mind in due
course, and do whatever I've made up my mind to do--whether it's
choosing a tie or...."
"Proposing to Joyce. Exactly. I've never pretended to tell you more
than what's in your own mind."
"You talked about the woman X. was going to _marry_, not merely
propose to. The last word doesn't lie with X."
"True. But if I know what's passing in Joyce's mind?"
"Does she know herself?"
"No! That's the wonderful thing about a woman's mind, it's so
disconnected. She's none of a man's faculty of taking a resolve,
seeing it, acting on it.... That's why I said she might not accept you
at once."
"You know her mind better than she does?"
As my interest rose, the Seraph became studiedly vague.
"I know nothing," he answered. "I merely suggest the possibility that
a woman may form a subconscious resolution and not recognise it as
part of her mental stock-in-trade for weeks, months, years.... If you
wait for her to recognise it, you may find you come too late; if you
come before she recognises it, you may find you've come too early."
I helped him into his coat as the three girls descended the stairs.
"Not a very cheerful prospect for X.," I suggested.
"X. had better help her to recognise her sub-conscious ideas," he
answered.
I felt a boy of twenty as we drove down St. Aldates, hurried across
Tom Quad, shed our wraps and struggled into the hall. The place was
half full already, and the orchestra, with every instrument duplicated
and Lorino thundering away at a double grand, had started an opening
extra. Youthful stewards, their shirt-fronts crossed with blue and
white ribbons of office, hurried to and fro in excessive, callow
zeal; bright among the black coats shone the full regimentals of the
Bullingdon; while stray followers of Pytchley, Bicester and V.W.H.
contributed their colour to the rainbow blaze.
My charges dutifully spilt a drop from their cups in my honour, but at
the end of an hour they were free to follow their own various
inclinations. There was no sign of Joyce in the ball-room, but I found
her at length by the stair-head, gratefully drinking in the fresh air,
flushed--or so I fancied--and occasionally passing a hand across eyes
that looked tired and strained. I gave her some champagne and led her
to her brother's room. Two armchairs that I had purchased in the
luxury-loving twenties seemed somehow to have withstood seven
undergraduate generations.
"You were quite the last person I expected to find here," I said,
after telling her of my meeting with Dick.
"I was quite the last person a lot of people expected to find here,"
she answered.
"Dick has a lot to be thankful for. So--for that matter--have others."
"Dear old Dick! he has a lot to put up with, if that's what you mean.
If he hadn't been a steward, they wouldn't have admitted me. Oh, the
staring and the glaring and the pointing and the whispering!"
I now appreciated the reason of the bright eyes and pink cheeks.
"If you _will_ espouse unpopular political causes," I began.
"I'm not complaining! _This_ was nothing to what I've been through in
the past. It's all in the day's work. What are you doing in Oxford?"
I helped myself to one of Dick's cigarettes. He kept them just where I
used to keep mine. On second thoughts I put it back and ran my hand
along the under-side of the mantelpiece to the hidden shelf where I
used to keep cigars maturing. Dick had followed my admirable
precedent. I commandeered a promising Intimidad, feeling all the while
like the ghost of my twenty-year-old self revisiting the haunts of my
affection.
"At the moment I met you, I was feeling very old and miserable," I
said, when I had told her of the party committed to my charge. "Time
was when I counted for something in this place, porters touched their
hats to me, I could be certain of an apple in the back of the neck as
I walked through the Quad. Now the hall is filled with young kings who
know not Joseph. There are not twelve men or maidens who recognise
me."
"Perhaps they don't know you."
"That," I said, "is not very helpful."
"I'm sorry. There are about two hundred people in that hall who know
me, but only four recognised me. You were one. I'm grateful."
"But what did you expect?"
"I wasn't sure. You came with the enemy."
It was time for me to define my attitude of political isolation. I
told her--what was no more than the truth--that I owed no allegiance
to king, country, church, or party. I have never been interested in
politics, and twenty years' absence from England have made me nothing
if not a citizen of the world. I cared nothing for the great franchise
question, it was a matter of indifference to me whether the vote was
granted or withheld. On the other hand, I have a great love of peace
and comfort, and resent any effort to force me into a position of
hostility.
"You won't convert me, Joyce," I said. "No more will the Rodens. I
refuse to mix myself up in the miserable business. Friends and
enemies, indeed! I have no enemies, but as a friend I wish I could
persuade you to accept the _fait accompli_. You're up against _force
majeure_, you'll have to give in sooner or later. Why not sooner?"
"Why give up at all?"
"You're striking at an immovable body."
"What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable body?"
"Is it an irresistible force?"
"Have you seen Mavis Rawnsley the last few weeks?"
The question was asked with fearless, impudent abruptness.
"I don't know her to speak to," I said. "You remember we caught sight
of her that night the Seraph took us to the theatre."
"The night I undertook to convert the idlest man in the northern
hemisphere? Yes."
"The night that same idler undertook to re-convert you. I've not seen
her since."
"Has her father?"
"You must ask him."
"I will. In fact, I have already. 'Where is Miss Rawnsley? A rumour
reaches us as we are going to press....' You'll find it all in this
week's _New Militant_, I had such fun writing it."
"What was the rumour?"
"We--ell!" Joyce put her head on one side and pretended to spur her
memory. "Some one said Mavis Rawnsley had disappeared. Nothing in
that, of course; _you_'ve disappeared before now. Then some one else
said she was being held to ransom till her father was converted to the
suffrage. That interested me. None of the papers said anything about
it; you'd have thought Mr. Rawnsley was making a mystery of it.
However, I wanted to know, so I'm asking the question in the leading
article. Perhaps he'll write and tell me. Do you love me enough to
give me a match?"
I lit her cigarette and talked to her for her soul's good.
"As I say, my law's pretty rusty," I told her in conclusion, "but you
may take it as quite certain that the penalty for abduction is rather
severe."
"Brutally," Joyce assented with unabated cheerfulness. "But you've got
to catch your criminal before you can imprison him."
"Or her."
"And you can't catch without evidence."
I wandered round the room in search of two cushions. I found only one,
but women do not need cushions to the same extent as men.
"That's the most banal remark I've ever heard from you," I told her.
"There never was a criminal yet that didn't think he'd left no traces,
never one that didn't think he was equal to the strain of sitting
waiting to be arrested. They all end in the same way, get frightened
or become reckless----"
"Which am I?"
"Neither as yet. You'll become reckless, because I don't think you
know what fear means."
"Reckless! Me reckless! If I have a glass roof put to the editorial
room of the _New Militant_, will you climb up and see my moderating
influence at work? If it hadn't been for me, we should have been
prosecuted over the first number."
"I suppose that's Mrs. Millington?" I hazarded. An echo of her fiery
pamphlets and speeches had reached me during the heyday of the arson
and sabotage campaign.
"What's in a name?" Joyce asked sweetly.
"Nothing at all. I agree. You tell me there's _some one_ who has to be
restrained. I tell you you'll be arrested the day after your
restraining influence is withdrawn...."
Joyce bowed her assent.
"And that will happen when you're invalided home from the front."
Joyce bowed again. "Me that never had a day's illness in my life," I
heard her murmur.
"It'll be a new experience, and you'll have it very shortly if I know
anything of what a woman looks like when she's overworked,
over-worried, over-excited. However fit you may be in other ways,
you're man's inferior in physical stamina. For the ordinary fatigues
of life...."
"But this wasn't!" The interruption came quickly in a tone that had
lost its early banter. "Elsie's case comes on at the end of this week.
I've been with her, I didn't want to come to-night, but she made
me--so as not to disappoint Dick. It's not very pleasant to sit
watching any one going through.... However, don't let's talk about it.
You were giving me good advice. I love good advice. It's cheap...."
"And so very filling? I'll give no more."
"Don't stop, it's a wonderful index. As long as people give me good
advice, I know I need never trouble to ask them for anything more."
I weighed the remark rather deliberately.
"You were nearer being spiteful then than I've ever heard you," I
said.
"But wasn't it true? The only three people I can depend on not to give
me good advice are Elsie, Dick and the Seraph."
"The only three who'll give you anything more?"
"Among the non-politicals. I've got politicals who'd go through fire
and water for me," she declared proudly.
"I can believe it. But only those three among the rest?"
"Those three." She sat looking me in the eyes for a moment, then a
mischievous smile of commiseration broke over her face. "My friend,
you're not suggesting _yourself_?"
"I'm waiting to be asked."
"It would be waste of time. You've not been living your own sinful
selfish life all these years for nothing. If a crash ever came--it's
kindly meant, but I should have to put you under instruction for six
months before I could be certain of you."
"You won't get six months."
"Then it's hardly worth starting, is it? In any case we shall win
without needing to call in outside help. What about getting back to
the ball-room?"
I exhibited my unfinished cigar.
"When you're tired of oakum and a plank bed," I began....
"Caught, tried _and_ condemned. If you want to be useful, you musn't
leave it as late as that."
"The sooner the better."
"I'll come as soon as there's a warrant out."
"Promise?"
"Faithfully. But there won't be any warrant if the cause succeeds."
"I pray you'll fail," was my fervent answer.
Joyce threw her cigarette petulantly into the fireplace.
"You've spoilt _every_thing by that!"
"My help was offered to you, not to your ridiculous cause."
"We can't be separated."
"Will you bet?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Anything you like!"
She sprang up and faced me with the light of battle in her eyes. The
flush had come back to her cheeks, her lips were parted, and the rope
of pearls round her neck rose and fell with her quick, excited
breathing. I shall not easily forget the picture she presented at that
moment. The room was lit by a single central globe, and against the
background of dark oak panels her black dress was almost invisible.
Standing outside the white circle of light, her slim fragile body was
hidden, but through the shadows I could see the shimmer of her spun
gold hair and the wonderful line of her gleaming white arms and
shoulders.
"Anything you like!" she repeated in confident gay challenge.
"I hold you to that."
Fifteen years ago I bought a scarab-ring in Luxor. After losing it
once a day for a fortnight, I had it fitted with ingenious couplings
so designed that when I caught it in a glove the couplings drew tight
and clamped the ring to the finger. When last I found myself in Egypt,
my Arab goldsmith had been gathered to his fathers, and the secret of
those couplings is vested in myself. Three London and two Parisian
jewellers have told me they could unravel the mystery by cutting the
ring to pieces. Short of that, they confessed themselves baffled.
"Hold out your hand, Joyce," I said. "No, the other one. There!"
I slipped the ring on to her third finger, stepped back to the table,
and lit a cigarette. This last was purely for effect.
Joyce looked at the ring and tried to move it.
"No good," I said. "You may cut the ring, which would be a pity
because it's unique; and it's not yours till you've won the wager. Or
you may amputate the finger, which also would be a pity, as that too
... well, anyway, it won't be yours to amputate if I win the bet."
Again she tried to move the ring, again without success.
"Will you take it off, please?"
I shook my head.
"You said I might fix the wager."
"Take it off, please!" she repeated, frowning disapproval upon me.
Unfortunately, like Mrs. Hilary Musgrave, she looks uncommonly well
when she disapproves.
"Shall we go back now?" I suggested. "I've finished my cigar."
"A joke may be carried too far," she exclaimed, stamping her foot as I
remember seeing her stamp it as a wicked, flaxen-haired child of five.
"Heaven witness I'm not joking!" I protested. "Nothing I could say
would move you in your present frame of mind; the wager gave me my
chance. It's a ring against a hand, and on the day that sees you
separated from your infernal cause, I come to claim my reward. As long
as you and the cause remain unseparated you may keep the ring. I'm
backing my luck; I always do, and it never fails me."
Joyce gave the ring a last despairing tug, and then with some
difficulty drew the finger of her glove over it.
"How long must I wait before I may have the ring cut?" she asked.
I had not considered that.
"Till my death?" I suggested.
"Sooner than that, I hope."
"Oh, so do I. I want to win the wager and get my stakes back."
Joyce passed out before me into the quadrangle, buttoning her glove as
she went. I was feeling elated by what had passed, elated and quite
deliciously surprised to find how short-lived her anger had been.
"I'm afraid I'm bound up with the cause more intimately than you
think," she began with unexpected gentleness. "For--let me see--three
years now people have been trying to show me the error of my ways, and
I go on just the same. Men and women, friends and relations, a
Suffragan Bishop...."
"Quite a proper distinction," I interrupted. "Neither fish, flesh,
fowl, nor good red herring."
"...and the only result is that I sink daily deeper into the mire."
"But this is where I come in."
"Too late, I'm afraid. Listen. I used to have a little money of my
own. I've sold out every stock and share I possessed to help found the
_New Militant_. I'm living on the salary they pay me to edit it. That
looks like business, doesn't it?"
I straightened my tie, buttoned the last button of my gloves, and
mounted the first step of the Hall stairs.
"Living out in the East," I said, "I have learnt the virtue of
infinite patience."
Joyce remained silent. It occurred to me that I had left an important
question unasked.
"When I win my wager," I began.
"You won't."
"Assume I do. No one likes losing bets, but would you seriously object
to the consequences?"
Joyce gave me the wonderful dawn of a smile before replying.
"I've never given the matter a thought," she answered.
"Subconsciously?" I suggested in a manner worthy of the Seraph.
She shook her head.
"Well, give it a thought now," I begged.
"It wouldn't make much difference whether I objected or not."
"If you honestly object, if you think the whole thing's a joke in
questionable taste, I'll take the ring off here and now."
Joyce began to unbutton her glove, then stopped and looked at me. I
suppose my voice must have shown I was speaking seriously; her eyes
were soft and kind.
"I think any girl 'ud be very lucky...." she began. I bowed, and as I
did so an imp of mischief took possession of her tongue. "...very
lucky indeed--to engage your roving affection."
"That wasn't what you started to say."
"I never know what I _am_ going to say. That's why I'm so good on a
platform."
"Shall I take the ring off?"
"I prefer to win it in fair fight."
"If you can," I rejoined, as we pressed our way into the bright warmth
of the ball-room.
My charges appeared to be profiting by my absence. Couple after couple
floated by with touching heads and dreamy eyes; half-way down the room
Philip was whispering in Gladys' ear and making her smile; I caught a
glimpse of Robin and Cynthia; then Sylvia and the Seraph glided past.
"Don't they look sweet together?" said Joyce, half to herself, as our
faces were subjected to a quick, searching glance.
"What about a turn before supper?" I suggested.
"Am I having it with you?"
"If you will."
"I should like to."
We started round the room, half-way through the waltz. Joyce was a
beautiful dancer, easy, light, and rhythmical. It was too good to
spoil with talking; I contented myself with one final remark.
"After all," I said, "you may as well start getting used to me."