'She isn't going with you,' I said. 'Can't you see she's afraid of you?'Antonia stood paralysed, swaying a little, her shoulders twisted, looking from one to the other of us with big alarmed eyes. She did in fact look the picture of terror.Palmer said, 'Martin, you and Antonia will do as I tell you.''Not any more,' I said. 'Poor Palmer. Now get out.'The notion that I was shortly going to hit Palmer came to us all at the same time. It showed in Antonia in a sudden excited moistening of the lips, and in Palmer in a relaxing of his expression, a return of the wide-eyed stripped look which he had worn in Cambridge. He stopped looking at Antonia and turned to face me.He said softly, 'You are a destroyer, aren't you.' Then he said to Antonia. 'Use your reason. I want to talk to you, and not here.'I said, 'For Christ's sake go.'Palmer said, 'Not without her,' and stepped forward towards Antonia, who moved back against the window, her hand coming up to her mouth. He put his hand on her arm as if to pull her and she gave a little cry at the contact. I followed him and dug my fingers into his shoulder. He turned and knocked my grip roughly away, and as his hands came up I hit him in the face as hard as I could. He lost his balance and fell heavily. Antonia stepped over him and ran from the room. The fight, such as it was, was over.Violence, except on the screen, is always pathetic, ludicrous, and beastly. Palmer got slowly to his knees and then manoeuvred himself to a sitting position with his back to the wall. He kept his face covered with his hand. I squatted beside him attentively. I noticed that the glass of one of the prints was cracked. I felt no anger against Palmer now, just a satisfaction in what had happened. The rain was still hissing down outside the window. After a minute or two I said, 'Are you all right?''Yes, I think so,' said Palmer through his hand. 'No serious damage. It hurts like hell.''That was the general idea,' I said. 'Let me see.' I gently pulled his hand away. Palmer's face, contracting against the light, showed me the beginnings of a splendid black eye. The eye was closed completely and the area round it was raw and swollen. A little blood marked the place on the cheek where my fist had arrived.'I haven't anything to treat you with,' I said. 'You'd better go home. I'll get you a taxi.''Give me a handkerchief, would you?' said Palmer. 'I can't see anything at the moment.'I gave him one and he held it to his damaged eye while he got laboriously to his knees again. I helped him up and brushed down his clothes. He stood there like a child while I did so. I kept my hands upon him and he did not move away. It was like an embrace. What I experienced in that moment was the complete surrender of his will to mine. Then I felt him trembling. I could not bear it.I said, 'I'll give you some whisky.' I poured some into the cracked glass. Palmer sipped it with docility.Antonia said from outside, 'The men are going. Could you pass me some money? I haven't enough.'I found a few shillings in the pocket of my jacket, and said to Palmer, 'Could you lend me five bob, by any chance?'He put the whisky down and, handkerchief still to eye, fished inside his coat. He gave me the silver, and I passed it all through the door to Antonia. I could hear the men departing. I wanted Palmer out of the house.I said, 'I'll go down with you now. We can pick up a taxi at the door.'He nodded. I pulled on my trousers and jacket over my pyjamas and we went out. There was no sign of Antonia. In the lift Palmer dabbed his eye and said softly to himself, 'Well, well, well…' I escorted him to the street, holding his arm, and a cruising taxi appeared almost at once. The rain was still falling relentlessly. When he was in the taxi we both tried to think of something suitable to say and Palmer said 'Well' again. I said, 'I'm sorry.' He said, 'Let me see you soon,' and I said, 'I don't know.' The taxi drove off.I crawled back to the lift. I felt I wanted to go away somewhere and sleep. I didn't even know whether Antonia was still in the flat. It occurred to me that it was for Honor and not for Antonia that I had hit Palmer. Or was it? I reached the door of the flat which was still wide open. I went through into the sitting-room. Antonia was standing near the window. She seemed calm. Hands behind back, head thrust forward, she surveyed me and her tired face was alive with a sort of provocative quizzical concern. She must have liked my hitting Palmer. Perhaps if I had hit Palmer on day one everything would have been different. Everything was certainly different now. Now I had power, but useless power.'Well, that appears to be that,' said Antonia.'What appears to be what?' I said. I sat down on the camp bed and poured some whisky into the glass. I was trembling now.'You've got me back,' said Antonia.'Have I?' I said. 'Good show.' I drank the whisky.'Oh, Martin,' said Antonia is a shaken voice, 'darling, darling Martin!' She came and fell on her knees in front of me, clasping my legs, and the great crystalline tears which she used began to pour again. I stroked her hair with one hand in an abstracted way. I wanted to be by myself and to think what I was going to do about Honor. It struck me as a bitter paradox that my flight to Honor had had the result of reconciling her and Palmer, Antonia and me: whatever vision it was that she through the brother and I through the sister had momentarily had it seemed likely now to perish. It was that that would have no sequel. I went on drinking the whisky.'Martin, you are so familiar,' said Antonia. 'It seems silly to say this when I ought to be saying much more splendid things to you, because you've been wonderful. But it's just this that strikes me! You know, I was afraid of Anderson, right from the start. It was never quite right, there was something a little forced. Do you know? I might even never have gone on with it if you had resisted, but no, you've been marvellous, you've been perfect. And it's so much better for me, don't you think, to have tried it and come through, and come back — if I'd dropped the idea at the start I would have been so tormented, wondering if perhaps there might have been something in it.’'But aren't you in love with Palmer any more?' I asked. I stared at the sleeve of my pyjamas which protruded damply from under my jacket. I had got soaked in my dash to the taxi.'It seems callous, doesn't it,' said Antonia. 'But somehow yesterday and last night – I can't tell you what it was like. I felt he hated me. He is a demon, you know. And love can die quickly, I think, just as it can be born quickly. I fell in love with Anderson in a flash.''Heigh-ho,' I said. 'All's well that ends well.' I noted in a spiritless way Antonia's perfect assumption that I wanted her back. There was something almost magnificent about it. But I could not play out the grand reconciliation scene which she obviously wanted.'Martin,' said Antonia, still on the floor, 'I can't tell you what joy and relief it is to be able to talk to you again. Though we never really lost touch, did we? Wasn't that quite miraculous, the way we kept in touch?''Pretty good,' I said. 'That was mainly your doing. Anyway, now we needn't worry about the Audubon prints.''Darling!' She hid her face against my knee, weeping and laughing. The door bell rang.I was in no mood for further visitors, but I went to the door. A wild idea occurred to me that it might be Honor. It was Rosemary.'Martin dear,' said Rosemary in her precise manner, businesslike as soon as the door was six inches open, 'I've come about the curtains. There's a problem about the shape of the pelmets, whether you want wavy ones or straight ones, and I thought I'd better ask you and have a look again myself on the spot. Good, I see your stuff has come. We can do a little arranging straightaway.''Come in, flower,' I said. I led her to the sitting-room.Antonia had dried her tears and was powdering her nose again. She greeted Rosemary. I said to Rosemary, 'I don't think we need bother about pelmets. Antonia and I are going to stay married after all, so everything can now go back to Hereford Square.'If Rosemary was disappointed, she concealed it gallantly. She said, 'I'm so glad, oh I'm so glad!' Antonia flew to her with a little cry and they began kissing each other. I finished the whisky.
