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By Root 7713 0

as unexpected as every change on this evening of swift veering moods. Suddenly she cut me across the face with her switch, a vicious, stinging little blow as hard as she could strike.

'Now do you see how I hate it?'

She hit me again.

'All right,' I said 'go on.'

Then, though her hand was raised, she stopped and threw the half-peeled wand into the water, where it floated white and black in the moonlight.

'Did that hurt?'

'Yes.'

'Did it?...Did I?'

In the instant her rage was gone; her tears, newly flowing, were on my cheek. I held her at arm's length and she put down her head, stroking my hand on her shoulder with her face, catlike, but, unlike a cat, leaving a tear there.

'Cat on the roof-top,' I said.

'Beast!'

She bit at my hand, but when I did not move it and her teeth touched me, she changed the bite to a kiss, the kiss to a lick of her tongue.

'Cat in the moonlight.'

This was the mood I knew. We turned towards the house. When we came to the lighted hall she said: 'Your poor face,' touching the weals with her fingers. 'Will there be a mark tomorrow?'

'I expect so.'

'Charles, am I going crazy? What's happened tonight? I'm so tired.'

She yawned; a fit of yawning took her. She sat at her dressing table, head bowed, hair over her face, yawning helplessly; when she looked up I saw over her shoulder in the glass a face that was dazed with weariness like a retreating soldier's, and beside it my own, streaked with two crimson lines.

'So tired,' she repeated,, taking off her gold tunic and letting it fall to the floor, 'tired and crazy and good for nothing.'

I saw her to bed; the blue lids fell over her eyes; her pale lips moved on the pillow but whether to wish me good night or to murmur a prayer—a jingle of the nursery that came to her now in the twilight world between sorrow and sleep: some ancient pious rhyme that had come down to Nanny Hawkins from centuries of bedtime whispering, through all the changes of language, from the days of pack-horses on the Pilgrim's Way—I did not know.

Next night Rex and his political associates were with us.

'They won't fight.'

'They can't fight. They haven't the money; they haven't the oil.'

'They haven't the wolfram; they haven't the men.'

'They haven't the guts.'

'They're afraid.'

'Scared of the French; scared of the Czechs; scared of the Slovaks; scared of us.'

'It's a bluff.'

'Of course it's a bluff Where's their tungsten? Where's their manganese?'

'Where's their chrome?'

'I'll tell you a thing...'

'Listen to this; it'll be good; Rex will tell you a thing.'

Friend of mine motoring in the Black Forest only the other day, just came back and told me about it while we played a round of golf. Well, this friend driving along, turned down a lane into the high road. What should he find but a military convoy? Couldn't stop, drove right into it, smack into a tank, broadside on. Gave himself up for dead...Hold on this is the funny part.'

'This is the funny part.'

'Drove clean through it, didn't scratch his paint;. What do you think? It was made of canvas—a bamboo frame and painted canvas.'

'They haven't the steel.'

'They haven't the tools. They haven't the labour. They're half starving. They haven't the fats. The children have rickets.'

'The women are barren.'

'The men are impotent.'

'They haven't the doctors.'

'The doctors were Jewish.'

'Now they've got consumption.'

'Now they've got syphilis.'

'Goering told a friend of mine...'

'Goebbels told a friend of mine...'

'Ribbentrop told me that the army just kept Hitler in power so long as he was able to get things for nothing. The moment anyone stands up to him, he's finished. The army will shoot him.'

'The Liberals will hang him.'

'The Communists will tear him limb from limb.'

'He'll scupper himself.'

'He'd do it now if it wasn't for Chamberlain.'

'If it wasn't for Halifax.'

'If it wasn't for Sir Samuel Hoare.'

'And the 1922Committee.'

'Peace Pledge.'

'Foreign Office.'

'New York Banks.'

'All that's wanted is a good