“He’s in bed, actually, but if you just hang on a minute till I’ve finished this lot I’ll make us all a cup of coffee and we can go and get him up.”

I glanced expressively at the gas stove as I spoke, heaved a sigh and made a great show of turning the mangle. But I knew it would be no use, the thought of putting the kettle on did not even flit near the outskirts of her mind. With complete absorption she sat there, and after a pause went on:

“Everyone told me it would be such an opportunity, working here with Wyndham Farrar and all that, but I just think it’s jolly boring, that’t what I think. Why does everyone think Wyndham’s so bloody marvellous?”

“Do they think that?”

“Well, they seem to, don’t they? I quite liked him at first, he used to be all over me, darling this and darling that, but now he hardly seems to notice I’m around.”

“It’ll be different,” I said, “in his next production. You’ve got quite a decent part in that, haven’t you? He probably just hasn’t had time for you so far.”

“Do you think that’s what it is? I suppose he has been a bit busy. I don’t suppose you’ve really had time to meet him yet, have you? David seems to think quite a lot of him. But he does make some frightful mistakes. What about casting Viola as Zanche, don’t you think that’s fantastic?”

“I haven’t seen The White Devil yet,” I said, “so I really couldn’t say.” I hate the sight of such ordinary pain and meanness. “And if you don’t mind moving over,” I went on, “I’ll get the coffee out of the cupboard now.”

And I made the coffee, and as David refused to get out of bed I sent her in to him. I did not grudge him his task of trying to persuade her she was a good actress, in the face of such a general agreement of opinion and against what I felt sure must be his own judgement. As I watched the soapy water from the machine drain away into the sink, I reflected that I, who had felt cheered by the tentative and probably halfhearted advances of a neurotic novelist, was contemplating keeping some sort of hold over a man like Wyndham Farrar, who had infinite choice and infinite opportunity, whereas I could not even think up a plausible excuse for a five-minute telephone call. I felt real envy of Sophy Brent, with her small lonely flatlet and her gas ring, her heaps of odd stockings, her drawers full of old gritty lipsticks, her empty evenings, her unwatched tears in bed. I felt that if for Wyndham there was any question of choice between her and me, she would win.