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To interrupt him Mr Duchemin put his thin hand courteously on Macmaster's arm. It had a great cornelian seal set in red gold on the third finger. He went on, reciting in ecstasy; his head a little on one side as if he were listening to invisible choristers. Macmaster really disliked the Oxford intonation of Latin. He looked for a short moment at Mrs Duchemin; her eyes were upon him; large, shadowy, full of gratitude. He saw, too, that they were welling over with wetness.

He looked quietly back at Duchemin. And suddenly it came to him; she was suffering! She was probably suffering intensely. It had not occurred to him that she would suffer--partly because he was without nerves himself, partly because he had conceived of Mrs Duchemin as firstly feeling admiration for himself. Now it seemed to him abominable that she should suffer.

Mrs Duchemin was in agony. Macmaster had looked at her intently and looked away! She read into his glance contempt for her situation, and anger that he should have been placed in such a position. In her pain she stretched out her hand and touched his arm.

Macmaster was aware of her touch; his mind seemed filled with sweetness. But he kept his head obstinately averted. For her sake he did not dare to look away from the maniacal face. A crisis was coming. Mr Duchemin had arrived at the English translation. He placed his hands on the table-cloth in preparation for rising; he was going to stand on his feet and shout obscenities to the other guests. It was the exact moment.

Macmaster made his voice dry and penetrating to say:

"Youth of tepid loves" is a lamentable rendering of puer callide! It's lamentably antiquated...'

Duchemin chewed and said:

'What? What? What's that?'

'It's just like Oxford to use an eighteenth-century crib. I suppose that's Whiston and Ditton? Something like that...' He observed Duchemin, brought out of his impulse, to be wavering--as if he were coming awake in a strange place! He added:

'Anyhow it's wretched schoolboy smut. Fifth form. Or not even that. Have some galantine. I'm going to. Your sole's cold.'

Mr Duchemin looked down at his plate.

'Yes! Yes!' he muttered. 'Yes! With sugar and vinegar sauce!' The prize-fighter slipped away to the sideboard, an admirable, quiet fellow; as unobtrusive as a burying beetle. Macmaster said:

'You were about to tell me something for my little monograph. What became of Maggie...Maggie Simpson. The Scots girl who was model for Alla Finestra del Cielo?'

Mr Duchemin looked at Macmaster with sane, muddled, rather exhausted eyes:

'Alla Finestra!' he exclaimed: 'Oh yes! I've got the watercolour. I saw her sitting for it and bought it on the spot...' He looked again at his place, started at sight of the galantine and began to eat ravenously: 'A beautiful girl!' he said. 'Very long necked...She wasn't of course...eh...respectable! She's living yet, I think. Very old. I saw her two years ago. She had a lot of pictures. Relics of course! In the Whitechapel Road she lived. She was naturally of that class...' He went muttering on, his head over his plate. Macmaster considered that the fit was over. He was irresistibly impelled to turn to Mrs Duchemin; her face was rigid, stiff. He said swiftly:

'If he'll eat a little: get his stomach filled...It calls the blood down from the head...'

She said:

'Oh, forgive! It's dreadful for you! Myself I will never forgive!'

He said:

'No! No!...Why, it's what I'm for!'

A deep emotion brought her whole white face to life:

'Oh, you good man!' she said in her profound tones, and they remained gazing at each other.

Suddenly, from behind Macmaster's back Mr Duchemin shouted:

'I say he made a settlement on her, dum casta et sola, of course. Whilst she remained chaste and alone!'

Mr Duchemin, suddenly feeling the absence of the powerful will that had seemed to overweigh his own like a great force in the darkness, was on his feet, panting and delighted:

'Chaste!' he shouted. 'Chaste you observe What a world of suggestion in the word...' He surveyed the opulent broadness of his tablecloth;