When I came back from sea The guuurls were waiting for me.
Well, at last it was over and he was sitting at a little table eating muffins and blackberry jam.
“What have I been doing, Mrs. Lane? Oh, I’ve been leading a blameless life,” and then he grinned and, Teresa was convinced, _simultaneously_ caught her eye, the Doña’s, Concha’s, and Jollypot’s.
She remembered when they were children how on their visits to the National Portrait Gallery, Jollypot used to explain to them that the only test of a portrait’s having been painted by a great master was whether the eyes seemed simultaneously fixed upon every one in the room; and they would all rush off to different corners of the gallery, and the eyes would certainly follow every one of them. The eyes of a male flirt have the same mysterious ubiquity.
“I do think it’s most extraordinary good of you to have me here for Christmas. I feel it’s frightful cheek for such a new friend, but I simply hadn’t the strength of mind to refuse—I _did_ so want to come. I know I _ought_ to have gone up to Scotland, but my uncle really much prefers having his goose to himself. He’s a sort of Old Father William, you know, can eat it up beak and all.... Yes, the shops _are_ looking jolly. I got stuck with the little car in a queue in Regent Street the other day and I longed to jump out and smash the windows and loot everything I saw. I say, Guy, you ought to write a poem about Christmas shops....”
“Well, as a matter of fact, it _is_ an amazing _flora_ and _fauna_,” cried Guy, moving away from Harry and the fire: “Sucking pigs with oranges in their mouths, toy giraffes ... and all these frocks—Redfern mysteriously blossoming as though it were St. John’s Eve, the wassail-bowl of Revell crowned with imitation flowers....”
“Oh Rory, it was too priceless—do you remember that exquisite _mannequin_ at Revell’s, a lovely thing with heavenly ankles? Well, the other day I was at the Berkeley with Frida and ...” and Concha successfully narrowed his attention into a channel of her own digging.
What energy to dig channels, to be continually on the alert, to fight!
Much better, like Horace’s arena-wearied gladiator, to seek the _rudis_ of dismissal.
The Doña made a little sign to Arnold, and they both got up and left the room, Dick suspiciously following them with his eyes.