different way music for dancing, the art is not concerned with action. It moves us to contemplation, which assists us in resolving our various conflicts. Through harmony we progress toward harmony.'
'Well, I didn't, the time I was telling you about. I progressed in the opposite direction, thank you. That's another thing I've got against it. It introduced me to conflicts I didn't even know I had.'
'Who was this monster?' asked Ayscue. 'He sounds to me rather like Sibelius.'
'No, he began with a B. But then most of them do, don't they?'
Hunter continued to disparage music in general, on grounds that became increasingly obscure, until Ross- Donaldson returned to the room.
'Phase 2,' he said to Hunter. 'I should go up in a couple of minutes.'
'Let's fill in the time together.'
They moved apart. Dr. Best looked as if he had got used to people doing that. Ayscue offered the music sheets to Leonard, who took them and turned through them with pretended interest. He tried to think of any comment at all.
'Where's the telephone?' Hunter was asking Ross-Donaldson.
'By her bed, I'm afraid.'
'Not the only one?'
'Oh yes. There used to be one in here, she was telling me, but she got rid of it because she got fed up with having to come all the way downstairs to put it back on its hook after she'd left it off its hook while she went upstairs to take it in her bedroom.'
'Thanks for putting it so cogently. But it leaves the problem intact.'
'She'll cheerfully go into the bathroom if you tell her it's Army business.'
Ross-Donaldson turned out to be right. Hunter was alone when eventually he picked up the telephone and sat down on the bed. The time he had spent in it with Lucy seemed to him much longer ago than the just-now it must really have been. What had taken place had been all right, but rather like trying to quench thirst by drinking a liqueur. The main difficulty had been to avoid catching himself pretending or fancying that he was with somebody else. This would have been far from unpleasant in itself, but not enlivening either. He had managed to steer clear of it nearly all the time.
He finished his telephone call and went and tapped on the bathroom door. Lucy came out. She had no clothes on.
'I'm off now,' he said.
'Did you get through and everything?'
'Yes thank you. Sorry to have pushed you out like that.'
'I was going in there anyway. Who's next on the list?'
'Brian Leonard. Then Dr. Best intends to have his word with you.'
'Oh dear. Tell me-Max? Max-is Mr. Leonard sort of all right?'
'Captain Leonard. He'd mind dreadfully if you got that wrong. Yes, he's all right really. Treat him gently, won't you?'
'I treat everyone gently.'
'I suppose it's possible. Oh. Willie Ayscue found a bunch of old music in your library. He wants to buy it off you. He seems to think it may be valuable.'
'Tell him he can have it, but I'd like him to send some money to a charity I do things for. Tell him I'll ring him up about it.'
'I will. Good night, Lucy, and thank you very much.'
'It's a pleasure.'
He put his arms round her and kissed her, wishing slightly that he could find this rather splendid, which it obviously was in fact, instead of just rather agreeable.
'Come and see me again.'
'I'd like to.'
Before Hunter had shut the door behind him Lucy was back in bed. She was sure that Captain Leonard would turn out to be all right really, but the qualification meant something like when you got to know him thoroughly or although there were hefty reasons for thinking him not all right. Something had seen to it so far that nobody who was not all right, even really, turned up at what she referred to, but did not think of, as her evening parties. One of her most faithful friends, a dentist who had motored up from the town every Monday and Thursday evening for two years, except when he was on holiday, had explained to her that the thing worked very much like a club. A new person was not invited along unless he was well known to the inviter and had been carefully considered in the two key aspects, as drinking-companion downstairs and, in so far as this could be estimated, as performer upstairs. It had all been a matter of making a sensible choice of people to start with, and this, no doubt mostly by luck, she must have managed to do.
She predicted to herself that, should Captain Leonard turn out to be not completely all right, this would take the form of his having too little of something or other rather than too much. Her brief look at him downstairs had been enough to suggest to her that there was nothing masterful about him. That could raise problems. The problems raised by over-masterful men were, in her experience, less troublesome. They were certainly less varied.
When, a couple of minutes later, Leonard knocked and came in, her prediction about him looked as if it was going to be justified. He kept fairly close to the wall, like a child at a new school. He smiled at her and said,
'Jolly nice room you've got here, haven't you?'
