“Why should Milady want to see you? Really, Magnus, you are intolerable. You are going to tell us, so why don’t you do it without making me corkscrew every word out of you?”

“If I tell you now, in the street, don’t you think I am being rather unfair to Lind? He wants to know too, you know.”

“Last night you virtually ordered Lind and his friends out of the hotel. Do you mean you are going to change your mind about that?”

“I was annoyed with Ingestree.”

“Yes, I know that. But what’s so bad about Ingestree? He doesn’t agree with you about Milady. Is the man to have no mind of his own? Must everybody agree with you? Ingestree isn’t a bad fellow.”

“Not a bad fellow. A fool perhaps.”

“Since when is it a criminal offence to be a fool? You’re rather a fool yourself, especially about women. I insist on knowing whatever there is to know about Milady.”

“And so you shall, my dear Liesl. So you shall. You have only to wait until this evening. I guarantee that when we go back to the Savoy we shall find that Lind has called, that Ingestree is ready to apologize, and that we are all three asked to dinner tonight so that I may very graciously go on with my subtext to Hommage. Which I am perfectly willing to do. And Ramsay will be pleased, because the free dinner he gets tonight will somewhat offset the cost of the dinner he had to share in giving last night. You see, all things work together for good to them that love God.”

“Sometimes I wish I were a professing Christian, so that I would have the right to tell you how much your blasphemous quoting of Scripture annoys me. And you mustn’t torment Ramsay. He hasn’t had your advantages. He’s never been really poor, and that is a terrible drawback to a man.—Will you promise to be decent to Ingestree?”

An unwonted sound: Eisengrim laughed aloud: Merlin’s laugh, if ever I heard it.

(3)

Magnus was having one of his tiresome spells, during which he was right about everything. We were indeed asked to dine as Lind’s guests after the showing of Hommage. What we saw in the poky little viewing-room was a version of the film that was almost complete; everything that was to be cut out had been removed, but a few shots—close-ups of Magnus—had still to be taken and incorporated. It was a source of astonishment, for I saw nothing that I had not seen while it was being filmed; but the skill of the cutting, and the juxtapositions, and the varieties of pace that had been achieved, were marvels to me. Clearly much of what had been done owed its power to the art of Harry Kinghovn, but the unmistakable impress of Lind’s mind was on it, as well. His films possessed a weight of implication—in St Paul’s phrase, “the evidence of things not seen”—that was entirely his own.