floated, as it were even more realistically than had the sad communer with the spirit of Jack Buchanan a few moments ago floated up it. It might have been the same girl, floating upwards in a Schiaparelli rustle of silk with a shining hood of hair, and floating downwards in a slim skirt with a white-spotted blue blouse, her hair now piled high. The normal noises of the house began to throb again. ‘Good-evening,’ said Nicholas.
And all my days axe trances.
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances.
And where thy footstep gleams —
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams!
‘Now repeat,’ said Joanna’s voice.
‘Come on then,’ said Selina, stepping ahead of him into the evening light like a racer into the paddock, with a high disregard of all surrounding noises.
7
‘Have you got a shilling for the meter?’ said Jane.
‘Poise is perfect balance, an equanimity of body and mind, complete composure whatever the social scene. Elegant dress, immaculate grooming, and perfect deportment all contribute to the attainment of self- confidence.’
‘Have you got a shilling for two sixpences?’
‘No. Anne’s got a key that. opens the meters, though.’
‘Anne, are you in? What about a loan of the key?’
‘If we all start using it too often we’ll be found out.’
‘Only this once. I’ve got brain-work to do.’
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
*
Selina sat, not yet dressed, on the edge of Nicholas’s bed. She had a way of glancing sideways beneath her lashes that gave her command of a situation which might otherwise place her in a weakness.
She said, ‘How can you bear to live here?’
He said, ‘It does till one finds a flat.’
In fact he was quite content with his austere bed-sitting room.. With the reckless ambition of a visionary, he pushed his passion for Selina into a desire that she, too, should accept and exploit the outlines of poverty in her life. He loved her as he loved his native country. He wanted Selina to be an ideal society personified amongst . her bones, he wanted her beautiful limbs to obey her mind and heart like intelligent men and women, and for these to possess the same grace and beauty as her body. Whereas Selina’s desires were comparatively humble, she only wanted, at that particular moment, a packet of hair-grips which had just then disappeared from the shops for a few weeks.
It was not the first instance of a man taking a girl to bed with the aim of converting her soul, but he, in great exasperation, felt that it was, and poignantly, in bed, willed and willed the awakening of her social conscience. After which, he sighed softly into his pillow with a limp sense of achievement, and presently rose to find, with more exasperation than ever, that he had not in the least conveyed his vision of perfection to the girl. She sat on the bed and glanced around beneath her lashes. He was experienced in girls sitting on his bed, but not in girls as cool as Selina about their beauty, and such beauty as hers. It was incredible to him that she should not share with him an understanding of the lovely attributes of dispossession and poverty, her body was so austere and economically furnished.
She said, ‘I don’t know how you can live in this place, it’s like a cell. Do you cook on that thing?’ She meant the gas grill.
He said, while it dawned upon him that his love affair with Selina remained a love affair on his side only, ‘Yes, of course. Would you like some bacon and egg?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and started to dress.
He took hope again, and brought out his rations. She was accustomed to men who got food from the black market.
‘After the twenty-second of this month.’ said Nicholas, ‘we are to get two and a half ounces of tea — two ounces one week and three ounces the next. ‘‘How much do we get now?’
‘Two ounces every week. Two ounces of butter, margarine, four ounces.’
She was amused. She laughed for a long time. She said, ‘You sound so funny.’
‘Christ, so I do!‘ he said.
‘Have you used all your clothing coupons?’
‘No, I’ve got thirty-four left.’
He turned the bacon in the pan. Then, on a sudden thought, he said, ‘Would you like some clothing coupons?’
‘Oh yes, please.’
He gave her twenty, ate some bacon with her, and took her home in a taxi.
He said, ‘I’ve arranged about the roof.’
She said, ‘Well, see and arrange about the weather.’
‘We can go to the pictures if it’s raining,’ he said.
*
He had arranged to have access to the roof through the top floor of the hotel next door, occupied as it was by American
