'Jessica.' 'Good. My name's Willy. Now listen, Jessica, will you for give me if I ask you some more questions and will you give me truthful answers? T 'Yes.' 'How long were you John's mistress?' 'About a year.' 'And how long since he dropped you?' 'About two years.' 'Have you seen much of him in the two years?' 'Yes. We've been sort of friends.' 'You're still in love, and he's not?' 'Yes. And he says now he wants us not to meet any more. Because he wants me to be free. But I don't want to be free.' 'I can understand that. But jealousy is a dreadful thing, Jessica. It is the most natural to us of the really wicked passions and it goes deep and envenoms the soul. It must be resisted with every honest cunning and with the deliberate thinking of gene. rous thoughts, however abstract and empty these may seem in comparison with that wicked strength. Think about the virtue that you need and call it generosity, magnanimity, charity. You are young, Jessica, and you are very delightful –may I just take your hand, so? – and the world is not spoilt for you yet. There is no merit, Jessica, in a faithfulness which is poison to you and captivity to him. You have nothing to gain here except by losing. You wish to act out your love, to give it body, but there is only one act left to you that is truly loving and that is to let him go, and to let him go gently and without resentment. Put all your, energy into that and you will win from the world of the spirit a grace which you cannot now even dream of. For there is grace, Jessica, there are principalities and powers, there is unknown good which flies magnetically toward the good we know. And suppose that you had found what you were looking for, my dear child? Would you not have been led on from jealousy through deceit into cruelty? Human frailty forms a system, Jessica, and faults in the past have their endlessly spreading network of results. We are not good people, Jessica, and we shall always be involved in that great network, you and I. All we can do is constantly to notice when we begin to act badly, to check ourselves, to go back, to coax our weakness and inspire our strength, to call upon the names of virtues of which we know perhaps only the names. We are not good people, and the best we can hope for is to be gentle, to forgive each other and to forgive the past, to be forgiven our= selves and to accept this forgiveness, and to return again to the beautiful unexpected strangeness of the world. Isn't it, Jessica, my child?' After a long pause Jessica said, 'Who are you?' 'My dear,' he murmured. 'You learn fast. Forgive me.' 'Good heavens,' said Jessica. Willy had kissed her. They were half facing each other now, with their knees braced together. Willy was holding her firmly by the wrist, while his other hand had strayed round her neck and was playing with her hair. Jessica had gripped the lapel of his jacket. They stared hard at each other. 'You are very beautiful, Jessica, and you remind me – you remind me of what I have seen in dreams, embraced in dreams. Forgive me for touching you. Really wanting to touch and to hold somebody, this is so important, isn't it? This is how we poor clay objects communicate, by looking thus, by touching thus. There should be few that you touch, and those the dearest ones.' 'Please tell me who you are,' she said. 'You are so strange. What is your second name?' 'No, no. Let us just be Willy and Jessica. We shall not meet again.' 'You can't say that when you've just kissed me. You can't kiss me and vanish. I shall ask John – ' 'If you ask John about me I shall tell him that you searched his room.' 'Oh! And you were saying that we should be gentle!' 'I am being gentle, my child. I am a murmuring voice, a little bird on a tree, the voice of your conscience perhaps. And if there is anything else it is just a little nameless imp, or an imp called Willy maybe, who is quite momentary and has no real self at all. If I do you any little hurt may it simply make you toss your head and return again to the beautiful strange wide unpredictable world.' 'But I must see more of you – you must help me – you could help me.' 'Anybody could help you, Jessica, if you wanted to helped. For now it is just you and me upon an island, a dream island of the unexpected, to be remembered like a dream, all atmosphere and feeling and nothing in detail. Oh, but you are beautiful. May I kiss you again?' Jessica slid her arms strongly round him and closed her eyes. She was roused by a sound which was Willy kicking off his shoes. She kicked off hers. With lips still joined they keeled over slowly into the unmade bed. Some time later as they lay heart to heart Jessica said softly, not anxiously, but curiously, 'What are we doing, Willy, what is this?' 'This is sacrilege, my Jessica. A very important human activity.' Twenty-four bounder would live in a place like this, he said to himself, as he turned into Smith Street and began to pass along the line of smartly painted hall doors. He was feeling far from jocular however. He had thought of Biranne as a man in a trap. But could the trap be sprung? Biranne was a strong man and not a fool. However much Ducane attempted to surprise him or even to bluff him he was unlikely to break down and confess or by any inadvertence to give himself way. There was nothing which Ducane knew for which some innocent explanation could not be garbled up. And if, with a cold eye, Biranne produced and stuck to these explanations what could Ducane do but apologize and retire, and if he apologized and retired what on earth could he do next? When Ducane reflected upon how little, in fact, he did know he was amazed at the strength of his certainty that Biranne was guilty, at least of something. Could this not be utterly mistaken? Tonight was a gamble, he told himself. But perhaps it was time for a gamble, since more prudent methods had produced mere intuitions, ranging from suspicion of murder to conjecture of total innocence. It was now nearly nine o'clock in the evening, and the dense dusty air, heavy with its heat, hung over London like a halfdeflated balloon, stuffy and sagging. The yellow sunlight was tired and the shadows were without refreshment. Only at the far end of the street could be seen the blurred dark green of trees which hinted at the river. Ducane, too agitated to wait at his own house, had come from Earls Court on foot. He had taken an early supper with Willy, who appeared to be in a curious state of euphoria. After supper Willy had switched on the wireless and Ducane had left him dancing round the drawing-room to the sound of Mozart's piano concerto in minor. Ducane, who was relying on surprising Biranne, had dialled his telephone number from Earls Court, silently replacing the receiver as soon as the familiar high-pitched voice answered the 'phone. As Ducane came near to the house he was almost choking with anxiety and excitement, and had to stop several times to get his breath from the thick air, which now seemed devoid of oxygen. He stopped finally a few paces away, shook himself or perhaps shuddered, straightened his back and walked briskly to the door. It was open. Ducane stood frozen upon the step, his hand half raised toward the bell. He lowered his hand. To his wrought-up nerves any unusual thing, even of the simplest, had an air of sinister significance. Was he after all expected? Had Biranne understood the meaning of the telephone call? Had Biranne seen him coming? Ducane stood and pondered. He decided that the open door was a matter of chance. Then he decided that he would not ring the bell. He would just walk in. As he stepped cautiously on to the thick yellow hall carpet, however, he felt more of the sentiment of the hunted than of the hunter. He looked about quickly, guiltily, half turned to retreat, paused, listened. The silence of the unfamiliar house composed menacingly about him. He became aware, buried in it, of a ticking clock, then of his own heart beating. He stood still, his eyes moving, seeing in the goldenish evening penumbra a marquetry table, an oval mirror, a recession of glittering stair-rods of lacquered brass. An open doorway, some distance straight ahead revealed, brighter, what appeared to be a billiard room. Attempting to breathe normally and not to tiptoe Ducane opened the door upon his right. The front room, evidently the dining-room. Empty. A great many bottles on a
