even by the most fugitive memory of the slight. Putting down his empty glass he went on to himself in the mirror: ‘Balance! If the F.O. sent a mission to Polynesia they would expect their despatches to begin (he put on a cringing whining tone to enunciate it): “While it is true that the inhabitants eat each other, nevertheless the food consumption per head is remarkably high.”’ He broke off suddenly and sitting down to lace his shoes said: ‘Oh, David my boy, who the devil am I going to be able to talk to when you go? Eh? You’ll be walking about in your ludicrous uniform with an osprey feather in your hat looking like the mating plumage of some rare Indian bird and I — I shall be trotting backwards and forwards to the Kremlin to see those dull beasts.’
The cocktails were rather strong. They embarked upon a second, and Mountolive said: ‘Actually, I came wondering if I could buy your old uniform, unless it’s bespoke. I could get it altered.’
‘Uniform?’ said Sir Louis. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘They are so fearfully expensive.’
‘I know. And they’ve gone up. But you’d have to send mine back to the taxidermist for an overhaul. And they never fit round the neck, you know. All that braid stuff. I’m a frogging or two loose I think. Thank God this isn’t a monarchy — one good thing. Frock coats in order, what? Well I don’t know.’
They sat pondering upon the question for a long moment. Then Sir Louis said: ‘What would you offer me?’ His eye narrowed. Mountolive deliberated for a few moments before saying ‘Thirty pounds’ in an unusually energetic and decisive tone. Sir Louis threw up his hands and simulated incoherence. ‘Only thirty? It cost me….’
‘I know’ said Mountolive.
‘Thirty pounds’ meditated his Chief, hovering upon the fringes of outrage. ‘I think, dear boy ——”
‘The sword is a bit bent’ said Mountolive obstinately.
‘Not too badly’ said Sir Louis. ‘The King of Siam pinched it in the door of his private motor-car. Honourable scar.’ He smiled once more and continued dressing, humming to himself. He took an absurd delight in this bargaining. Suddenly he turned round.
‘Make it fifty’ he said. Mountolive shook his head thoughtfully.
‘That is too much, sir.’
‘Forty-five.’
Mountolive rose and took a turn up and down the room, amused by the old man’s evident delight in this battle of wills. ‘I’ll give you forty’ he said at last and sat down once more with deliberation. Sir Louis brushed his silver hair furiously with his heavy tortoiseshell-backed brushes. ‘Have you any drink in your cellar?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes, I have.”
‘Well then, you can have it for forty if you throw in a couple of cases of … what have you? Have you a respectable champagne?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. Two — no,
They both laughed and Mountolive said ‘It’s a hard bargain you drive.’ Sir Louis was delighted by the compliment. They shook hands upon it and the Ambassador was about to turn back to the cocktail tray when his junior said: ‘Forgive me, sir. Your third.’
‘Well?’ said the old diplomat with a well-simulated start and a puzzled air. ‘What of it?’ He knew perfectly well. Mountolive bit his lip. ‘You expressly asked me to warn you.’ He said it reproachfully. Sir Louis threw himself further back with more simulated surprise. ‘What’s wrong with a final boneshaker before lunch, eh?’
‘You’ll only hum’ said Mountolive sombrely.
‘Oh, pouf, dear boy!’ said Sir Louis.
‘You will, sir.’
Within the last year, and on the eve of retirement, the Ambassador had begun to drink rather too heavily — though never quite reaching the borders of incoherence. In the same period a new and somewhat surprising tic had developed. Enlivened by one cocktail too many he had formed the habit of uttering a low continuous humming noise at receptions which had earned him a rather questionable notoriety. But he himself had been unaware of this habit, and indeed at first indignantly denied its existence. He found to his surprise that he was in the habit of humming, over and over again, in
‘Well, David’ he said, and patted Mountolive’s arm with affection. ‘I owe you many a good turn. No humming today, however appropriate.’
They walked slowly down the long curving staircase and into the hall where Mountolive saw his Chief gloved and coated before signalling the official car by house-telephone. ‘When do you want to go?’ The old voice trembled with genuine regret.
‘By the first of next month, sir. That leaves time to wind up and say good-bye.’
‘You won’t stay and see me out?’
‘If you order me to, sir.’
‘You know I wouldn’t do that’ said Sir Louis, shaking his white head, though in the past he had done worse things. ‘Never.’
They shook hands warmly once more while Merritt walked past them to throw back the heavy front door, for his ears had caught the slither and scrape of tyre-chains on the frosty drive outside. A blast of snow and wind burst upon them. The carpets rose off the floor and subsided again. The Ambassador donned his great fur helmet and thrust his hands into the carmuff. Then, bowed double, he stalked out to the wintry greyness. Mountolive sighed and heard the Residence clock clear its dusty throat carefully before striking one.
Russia was behind him.
* * * * *
Berlin was also in the grip of snow, but here the sullen goaded helplessness of the Russias was replaced by a malignant euphoria hardly less dispiriting. The air was tonic with gloom and uncertainty. In the grey-green lamplight of the Embassy he listened thoughtfully to the latest evaluations of the new Attila, and a valuable summary of the measured predictions which for months past had blackened the marbled minute-papers of German Department, and the columns of the P.E. printings — political evaluations. Was it really by now so obvious that this nation-wide exercise in political diabolism would end by plunging Europe into bloodshed? The case seemed overwhelming. But there was one hope — that Attila might turn eastwards and leave the cowering west to moulder away in peace. If the two dark angels which hovered over the European subconscious could only fight and destroy each other…. There was some real hope of this. ‘The
That night he was dined somewhat extravagantly by the youthful Charge d’Affaires, as the Ambassador was absent on duty, and after dinner was taken to the fashionable Tanzfest for the cabaret. The network of candle-lit cellars, whose walls were lined with blue damask, was filled with the glow of a hundred cigarettes, twinkling away like fireflies outside the radius of white lights where a huge hermaphrodite with the face of a narwhal conducted the measures of the ‘Fox Macabre Totentanz’. Bathed in the pearly sweat of the nigger saxophonists the refrain ran on with its hysterical coda:
