“You wait till she comes to town a year hence,” advised Derek. “And what’s more, my beauty, you’re going into training for our tennis tournament. I mean to make a champion of you.”

“A champion at paying all the loose ends of expenses,” murmured Big Ears.

“Well, you’ll have your portrait painted for that as soon as you get a tummy to fill the middle of a canvas. When training, the first rule is that you must not think of a lady. Nothing so puts a man out of condition.”

“That’s pugilists,” protested Big Ears.

“What will put the punch into pugilists is good enough to give a forehand wallop to your serving. Now, assure Sybylla that she mustn’t have any spoony drivel for a whole year at least. You are as free as air. So is she. In a year’s time, we shall see.”

I gave Big Ears his bracelets. He began to discuss the possibility of getting into a first-class game, and we three returned to the drawing-room together.

The people dribbled away rather early that night. The Editor stopped a moment on the doormat talking to Mrs. Crasterton and promised to ring up in the morning.

Gad insisted upon my having a talk with him in his study as I went up to retire. I did not feel too easy, but did not know how to escape.

“Dear, dear,” said Gaddy, “so you have returned the sash like a novelette. You take life too hard altogether. Cuss it, I don’t think it will hurt either of us for you to keep that piece of rag. So my little bit of spoof scared you! I did not understand what an inexperienced child you are. I’m awfully sorry that I upset you, because I have no other feeling but one of friendship.”

Waves of shame swept all over me to find what a fool I had made of myself, but I was learning the technique of dissimulation hour by hour. If only I had kept my head and applied Zoë’s recipe!

“Oh, Gaddy, I really thought for a moment that you were in earnest, because others have been, you know, or thought they were for an hour or two, and you were such a lovely friend that it was sad to have you turn spoony.”

“That’s what we are always going to be, I hope—friends.”

On this note we separated, I with the sash in my hand.

I had a tortured sleepless night. I roamed into Edmée’s room. She was sleeping as soundly as Mrs. Crasterton, and as audibly. All the lovers raging for Edmée or misconstruing her actions did not agitate her. A beauty, no doubt, early grows accustomed to that sort of thing. I envied Edmée her royal self-satisfaction. She had been adulated all her life so that her ears caught only approval, while mine, supersensitive and directed to concentrate on shortcomings, accumulated and retained only wounds and let the plaudits go.

I was disturbed by the antics of Big Ears and by Derek’s intervention; and Gad’s case was more botched-up than happily erased. I could not be sure that he had been joking. Even had he been, the worry was merely transferred to my being the fool. Derek too added to my humiliation by emphasising his brotherliness. Did I appear to him as absurd as a figure of romance as Gaddy did to me? Could I have had just one evening dress and dancing lessons I could have had some fun among people of my own age.