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"Some of my ideas get enlarged almost before I have them."

"Yes, that was just what I felt. Usually, I am a bit reserved.... Do you get on well with Dickie?"

"Well, when you came he and I were just going to roll the carpet up."

"I hope I was not tactless."

"Oh no."

"Dickie's extremely popular," Cecil said with a mixture of gloom and pride. "I should say he was a born leader of men. I expect you find Daphne awfully fascinating?"

"Well, she is out most of the day."

"Daphne," said Cecil, a shade reproachfully, "is one of the most popular girls I have ever met. I don't suppose one will get near her the whole evening."

"Oh dear! Couldn't you try?"

"To tell you the truth," said Cecil, "I am not doing so badly where I am."

At this interesting point Mrs. Heccomb, in a claret lace dress that could not have come from Anna, looked anxiously into the diningroom. "Oh, here you are, dear," she said. "I was wondering. Good evening, Cecil, I'm so glad you could come. I think they are thinking of dancing quite soon now."

Portia and Cecil rose and trailed to the door. In the lounge, an uncertain silence told them that the party's first impetus had lapsed. About a dozen people leaned round the walls, sat rather stonily on the settee-back or crouched on the roll of carpet. They were all looking passively at Daphne, willing though not keen to fall in with her next plan. Mrs. Heccomb may have been right when she said they were thinking of dancing—if they were thinking, no doubt it was about that. Daphne gave them one or two hostile looks—this was what she called sticking about. She turned, and with Mr. Bursely beside her, stickily fingering records, began to hover over the gramophone.

But there was a deadlock here, for she would not start the gramophone till they had got up, and they would not get up till she had started the gramophone. Dickie stood by the mantelpiece with Clara, clearly feeling that he had done enough. His manner rather said: "Now if we had gone to the Eagles, this would not have happened." Clara was a smallish girl with crimped platinum hair, a long nose, a short neck and the subservient expression of a good white mouse. Round her neck she wore a frill of white organdie roses, which made her head look as though it were on a tray. Her manner of looking up made Dickie look still more virile. Any conversation they did seem to be having seemed to be due to Clara's tenacity.

Portia's appearing in the doorway with Cecil released some inside spring in Daphne immediately. No doubt she thought of Anna—stung to life, she let off the gramophone, banged the needle down, and fox-trotted on to the parquet with Mr. Bursely. Four or five other couples then rose and faced each other to dance. Portia wondered if Cecil would ask her—so far, they had been on such purely mental terms. While she wondered, Dickie stepped from Clara's side, impressively crossed the room and stood over Portia, impassive. "Shall we?" he said.

She began to experience the sensation of being firmly trotted backwards and forwards, and at each corner slowly spun like a top. Looking up, she saw Dickie wear the expression many people wear when they drive a car. Dickie controlled her by the pressure of a thumb under her shoulder blade; he supported her wrist between his other thumb and a forefinger—when another couple approached he would double her arm up, like someone shutting a penknife in a hurry. Crucified on his chest against his breathing, she felt her feet brush the floor like any marionette's. Increasingly less anxious, she kept her look fixed on the cleft of his chin. She did not flatter herself: this démarche of Dickie's could have only one object—by chagrining Clara to annoy Daphne. Across Mr. Bursely's shoulder, Daphne threw Dickie a furious, popping look. For Clara was both grateful and well-to-do, and Daphne, by an unspoken arrangement, got her percentage on any fun Clara had.

But Dickie, though inscrutable, was kind: half way through the second record, he said: "You seem to be getting