She took a sip of whisky in reply, coughed through her cigarette. She sat, indifferent, in the just interested glances of neighbouring blondes. She had stopped making excuses for herself.

Wally began to tell the history of Harry Simmons, to which she listened theoretically, but sitting in a cloud, the perpetual cloud that had begun to follow her about. My lover is a saxophonist, she said. But this again, theoretically. She began to feel, in the haze of drink, of narrative, that her body had dissolved, the physical passion, except in theory, those little twinges of jealousy for a glance that rested too long on a neighbouring blonde. To possess in theory, in retrospect, perhaps this would be the ultimate solution. But she wasn’t sure she wanted this, to renounce the discomfort of self-assertion.

We might go and eat, she said, shaking an inertia off her shoulders.

She looked at him affectionately enough. She was fond of the source of her reassurance. Some women, she supposed, would keep a dog. Then she began to hate herself.

I’m looking forward to my dinner, she said, out of a full conscience. You shall order me something. Something for an occasion.

What sort of an occasion?

Just an occasion, she said. I like to make occasions.

She was a queer one, Kate, but a good sort. His eye rested thoughtfully on a trail of blondes. Yes, he said, a queer one. Sitting there sometimes as if she wasn’t there. Talking about the War. His eye rested on the cleavage in a blonde bust that blossomed from the contours of an armchair. It was an uneasy journey to the dining-room.

She said yes, lobster, lobster, thermidor, because it reminded her.

O.K., he said, if it was going to be like that.

The decorations made him affluent, the trellises with gold grapes, and the pink shades. Here he liked to show off what he had made himself, out of the side street in Bethnal Green. He liked to touch the heavy hotel cutlery. He anticipated the rich flavour of the standard hotel foods. Whether she liked it or not, he was her equal now. Sometimes he felt the pressure of her disapproval, just enough to throw him out of his stride. But he looked across at her possessively, and beyond her at the room, which became an illusion of his own importance. Not as young as she was, she said, which was true, but a good sort. He could afford to be generous. And there remained in Wally Collins the sentimental streak, the roses and moonlight streaming from the saxophone.

A face advanced, nodded, across the room.

That’s that Harry Simmons, he said.

What? she said. Again!

She began unaccountably to feel annoyed. A cold current passing.

Yes, he said. He’s at liberty, you know. And the girl, I guess he’s tied up with that girl, the little, cute, dark piece. He’s putting her across. Croons. Alice Delaware, Wally said.

Mrs Standish looked at Miss Alice Delaware, sized up her assurance and the crimson nails. The nails dug into bread. A moist, crimson smile drifted on a face.