It’s a question of if I have the time, she said.

She looked at an imaginary clock, she looked at the face of the Jewess, at a sympathetic smile.

If I have the time in this day and age, said Mrs Standish. Because there’s so much. But he ought to keep, your Monsieur Derain. And if he won’t, it’s too bad. Look, Miss Raphael, I’d like immensely, and Elyot, I’m always at home on Thursdays at five. I shall tell Elyot. Now remember. I shall be most disappointed if it isn’t Thursday next.

To smile it out, to retreat, the smile brazen on the mouth, like the song from a pre-War phonograph, emphatically superannuated. On the stairs Mrs Standish went back lamentably, detail by detail, over the played scene. Now, she said, this is absurd. But it rankled, the teeth of the Jewess biting on an understanding smile, that made you want to receive her on your own ground. On Thursday, said Mrs Standish, with a mingling of hope and horror.

Thursdays in Ebury Street, in spite of Mrs Standish’s admiration for the French belletrists, her enthusiasm for the salon, herself a kind of letterless Sévigné, remained an affair of watercress sandwiches and orange pekoe. Sun in her room tarnished the many little objects, the photographs, the books. A place where the stringy background of the carpet had appeared was covered by the little footstool that everyone inevitably kicked. But optimism and perhaps an unconfessed weariness got Mrs Standish past the shortcomings of her room. Then there were the lilies, fresh for Thursdays, there was also Mrs Standish’s voice, sailing through, resting on things, persuading herself and sometimes other people that elegance was at a premium.

Miss Raphael is coming, Elyot, said Mrs Standish, her voice taking stock of its own effect.

She looked at him. She had the sudden hopeless sinking that comes from not knowing someone you ought to know well. The voices of Muriel Raphael, of many Muriel Raphaels, of many strangers, united the other side of the wall.

That will be nice for someone, said Elyot.

He swallowed his words. Because it was all too obvious the trend that things were taking, it was like the voice of Muriel Raphael, we also have a Poussin. You took it or left it. There was toast for breakfast.

You might look in and see her, said Mrs Standish.

Revive the physical Muriel, who was all this, as obvious as your hand.

After all, she’s your friend, his mother said.

She hoped she didn’t sound preoccupied, behind lilies, her voice.

Well, he said, you know.

It was a conspiracy he half wanted to take part in, or had already, it was like a fortune-teller in Brompton Road. A dark lady, dear, morals is none of my business, only facts. Only you always resented your own knowledge when it got there ahead of yourself.