And so she chattered on, with no apparent awareness that Mary might not find such gossip as enthralling as she herself did. I watched them helplessly, unable to control this social event which had sprung so unexpectedly upon me. Sophy might have been a walking symbol of an actress: she had every manifestation possible, the long loose hair, the smart clear clothes, the thick mascara, the painted nails, the talk, the lovely figure and the lovely face. And the stupidity. There could be no doubt about it, she came across as stupid and as shiny as an apple; and she treated me with such darlings and such familiarities that I knew that Mary must take her for one of my chosen friends. I could not deny, moreover, that I found her manner considerably nearer home than I found Mary’s. I had become so accustomed to a bright and superficial flow that I had to make an effort even to hear its absurdity. I tried hard not to side with Sophy; I tried not to side with either of them, I tried to balance myself neatly in the middle, and I thought, as I often used to think, though more rarely these days, of that fable, Aesop’s no doubt, in which a boy and his father and a donkey set off on a journey and cannot satisfy any passerby that they are rightly employed. “Oh, the poor child,” cries one as the father rides, and “Oh, your poor old father,” cries another as the boy rides, and “Oh, the poor donkey,” cries a third as they both ride, and “Oh, what fools to walk and to take no advantage of your donkey,” cries a fourth as they both dismount, and these are the cries that echo regularly and more or less in sequence in my ears.

Sophy was clearly a one to ride her donkey: she ate everything within sight, spreading far more jam on her bread than I ever think decent in company, dropping crumbs and talking all the time, largely about herself. Mary, on the other hand, seemed to be soberly walking: she ate little and talked little, and I remembered as I watched her that she had always been given to undue consideration of the feelings of others. She allowed Sophy to run away with the conversation entirely: she was too well mannered even to betray any lapse of attention, which with someone of Sophy’s calibre would not anyway have been noticed. She would always remember to shut gates, and would carry orange peel for miles rather than drop it in a ditch. I used to say, sometimes, that surely orange peel would rot, and she would rebuke me and say that anyone with a real respect for the countryside would never say such things.