COOMARASWAMI That is not a requirement.

FLORA I’m afraid I’m without religion, you see.

COOMARASWAMI I do see! Which religion are you afraid you are most without?

FLORA Now, Mr Coomaraswami, turning a phrase may do for Bloomsbury but I expect better from you.

‘And I told him about Herbert’s lady decorator being asked on· her deathbed what was her religion and telling the priest, “I’m afraid I worship mauve”.’

COOMARASWAMI (Thoughtfully) For me, it is grey.

FLORA ‘I’m going to like India.’

PIKE (With letter) Who was Herbert?

MRS SWAN Wells.

PIKE Ah. (Catching on) H. G. Wells? Really? (Cautiously) You don’t mean he and Flora … ?

MRS SWAN You should see your face. Flora met him not long before she went out.

PIKE Out?

MRS SWAN To India. It must have been round Christmas or New Year. I think I got a postcard from Paris (She delves into the shoebox) Flora loved Paris. Here, look … is that it?

PIKE Paris, yes … no, 1924 … it’s a souvenir of the Olympic Games.

MRS SWAN Oh yes, the hurdler. Flora apologized publicly in the Chelsea Arts Club. No medals for us in the hurdles.

PIKE Is that true, Eleanor?

MRS SWAN Now, Eldon, you are not allowed to write a book, not if you were to eat the entire cake. The Collected Poems was a lovely surprise and I’m sure the Collected Letters will be splendid, but biography is the worst possible excuse for getting people wrong.

FLORA ‘So far, India likes me. My lecture drew a packed house, Mr C’s house, in fact, and a much more sensible house than mine, built round a courtyard with a flat roof all round so I had an audience in the gods like gods in the audience …’ (There is the sound of the applause. Coomaraswami faces the audience with Flora. It is night. There may be a microphone for the public statements.) ‘… and it all went terribly well, until …’

COOMARASWAMI Miss Crewe in her wisdom and beauty has agreed to answer questions!

FLORA ‘—and the very first one went—’

QUESTIONER Miss Crewe, it is said you are an intimate friend of Mr H. G. Wells—

FLORA ‘—and I thought, “God, how unfair!—to have come all this way to be gossiped about as if one were still in the Queen’s Elm”—’

PIKE A public house in the Fulham area of Chelsea.

FLORA ‘—but it turned out nothing was meant by it except—’

QUESTIONER Does Mr Wells write his famous books with a typewriter or with pen and ink?

FLORA (Firmly) With pen and ink, a Waterman fountain pen, a present from his wife. (There is an appreciative hubbub.) ‘Not that I had the least idea—Herbert showed small inclination to write his famous books while I was around.’

PIKE FC had met Wells no earlier than December and the affair was therefore brief, possibly the weekend of January 7th and 8th; which she spent in Paris.

FLORA ‘After which there was a reception with lemonade and Indian Scotch …’