Ivy stood on the doorstep until he was out of sight. Eric stared long at an unlighted cigarette and then searched his pockets for a match. He was bewildered and a little nervous and utterly exhausted....
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“... And by and by my Soul return’d to me, And answer’d ‘I Myself am Heav’n and Hell: Heav’n but the Vision of fulfill’d Desire, And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire...” EDWARD FITZGERALD: “RUBÁIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.”
A fortnight before Whitsuntide Lord Pentyre engaged a taxi for the day and drove round London, belatedly assembling a house-party for Croxton Hall.
“Mothers aren’t fit to be trusted!,” he explained querulously to Deganway, when they met in the smoking-room of the County Club. “I suppose it’s the war. They’ve got utterly out of hand... And you could always rely on mine to collect the worst-assorted cranks, crooks and bores in the length and breadth of Buckinghamshire. I vaguely left things to her... You must help me out, Gerry; we’ll make up a party of our own and freeze out the others.”
Deganway called for a draft list of the guests before committing himself.
“General Sir Maurice Maitland,” he read, letting fall his eye-glass in blank dismay. “Oh, my dear, he’ll want to talk to me about the war; no one can make him understand that it’s _over_... Lady Maitland... She always wants to know what I’m going to do about Russia and _will_ make me responsible for the peace conference... Ivy... Oh, that’s the niece; Eric Lane has a wild passion for her—”
“I saw him at Maidenhead with her last Sunday. Happy thought! He shall come and talk to her... I want one or two bright souls who’ll talk to _me_ and perhaps take a hand in a little game of poker. You, me, Babs Oakleigh, Sonia O’Rane, my young brother,—Amy Loring doesn’t play—the Pinto de Vasconcellos....”
“Oh, Bobbie, _can_ we bear them for the whole of a long week-end?,” asked Deganway with misgiving. “Madame is mortally offended with any man who doesn’t make love to her, and the husband with any man who does. I should hate to be knifed or garotted or whatever they do in Brazil or wherever they come from.”
“I don’t know them. Margaret Poynter wished them on to my mother.”