ask you purely in a scientific spirit.'
'I don't care what spirit you ask me purely in, I'm not answering. You can go and…' Lucy checked herself. 'Why do you want to know?'
'As I said, he interests me.'
Dr. Best came forward and sat on the edge of the bed about where Lucy's knees were. She glimpsed a couple of inches of pale and apparently hairless leg between his trouser-cuff and the top of his sock.
'Did he say anything to you about this job of his that he evidently considers so secret?'
Without taking any decision whether Leonard's ideas about the doctor were fantastic or not, Lucy became alert. 'A little, yes,' she said.
'Did this little strike you as plausible? Or was he talking wildly? In your estimation, naturally.'
'He's on secret work all right.'
'Mm. Of what nature?-according to him.'
Lucy was unfamiliar with Dr. Best's line of inquisitiveness. She said experimentally, 'He didn't say exactly, but I gathered it was something to do with nuclear war.'
'Oh.' The doctor seemed delighted. 'That has a very familiar ring. The number of people who believe themselves to be engaged on that type of activity would comprise a World War II division. Did he give any details?'
She remembered a phrase from a newspaper. 'Tactical atomic weapons.'
'Wonderful,' he said, positively laughing now. 'The technology of the unconscious is never less than a decade behind its frontiers in reality. All the people who were the victims of private poison-gas attacks in the era of the flying bomb. Any moment now the Red Chinese will have stolen one of those tactical atomic weapons and start boring holes in his brain with it.'
The general drift of this escaped Lucy, whose temporary alertness had passed. But she would remember enough to pass a version of it on to Leonard the following evening. 'I expect you're right,' she mumbled.
'I didn't come here to discuss that, however. In fact I didn't come here to discuss anything,' he said, throwing the bed covers aside and seizing her in his arms.
It was against Lucy's principles, or at any rate her practice, to refuse to accommodate any man who had been properly introduced to her, but this proviso did not apply to Dr. Best. She was to work out later that only the depth of her unwillingness to think of him behaving like this had stopped her expecting him to. All she could think of for the moment was how much worse being in contact with his mouth was than just looking at it. She twisted her head aside.
'Get away from me,' she said loudly. 'Leave me alone.'
He held her legs down with his own and started trying to pull her bed-jacket off over her shoulders. While he did this he talked quickly and quietly.
'One can see now what your much-vaunted enthusiasm for men amounts to. Like everybody else who purports to have dealings with large numbers of individuals you actually live at a low level of sexuality. Those like yourself who are victims of the Messalina syndrome have to hold in their mind the notion of an endless string of partners in order to render themselves capable of sexual intercourse.'
'Get away. I don't want you. Leave me alone.'
'Evidently a straightforward approach of this kind is less acceptable to you than you would pretend. Is your basic erotic impulse so feeble that you're compelled to energize it with adventitious aids?'
'Stop it. You're hurting me. Let go.' Lucy was shouting now. The shoulders of the jacket were far enough down her arms to immobilize them partly. The doctor set about lifting her body in order to pull off her pajama trousers, still talking.
'What do you need to experience before you're able to receive the male? Flagellation by one party or the other? Or something even less conventionally acceptable? Or does nothing actually take place in this room at all? Is there an agreement to simulate a series of sexual encounters in order to raise the amatory status of those concerned? That would be… Ah.'
He stopped talking as he drew the pajamas clear and flung them aside.
'James!' screamed Lucy. 'I'm being raped! James!'
Her thrusting foot caught Dr. Best on the shoulder and sent him reeling sideways into the dressing-table. He slid along the front of this, dislodging several jars and pots, tripped over the wastepaper-basket and fell to one knee. In a few seconds he was up again and coming for her, but before he reached her the door was flung open and Churchill came in wearing a shirt and trousers. Dr. Best halted and began adjusting his tie.
Churchill took in the scene. 'Out,' he said.
'When certain women find their advances rejected they frequently avenge their loss of self-respect by making accusations of rape or attempted rape. An obvious-'
'I'm sure you're right, but that's not what was happening here. Out. Who are you, anyway?'
'My name is Best. I-'
'Best? Best! Out at the double! Can you manage under your own steam? Or would you like some assistance?'
'Certainly not,' said the doctor in some indignation. 'I welcome the chance of departure. Good night, Lady Hazell.'
He left. Churchill picked up Lucy's pajamas and gave them to her.
'Are you all right? Would you like me to fetch Catharine?'
