Mr. Putnam Staybridge was a successful experimenter in moods. He had already dropped the venom and honey, the purr of a cat with a mouse, and he barked like a terrier:

‘Good evening, Howard, I daresay you would agree that the weather is warm.’

‘Uh . . .’

‘I see that we are in accord about the weather.’

‘Uh . . .’

‘But there is, perhaps, a weightier topic. I don’t know whether you have the intelligence to perceive it, but it looks to me as though you either had grossly improper intentions, as they call ’em, toward my daughter, or else you are young idiot enough to think that you could marry her. Which, eh? Which?’

‘W-why, I’ll tell you, Mr. Staybridge . . .’

‘Don’t stammer!’

‘Well, golly, springing things like that so suddenly — hard for a fellow to answer, right off the bat . . .’

Light fingers on his arm, Annabel had guided Howard to a stiff Colonial settee, and she perched beside him, like a cowbird chaperoning an ox, while he struggled:

‘Course, maybe I suppose I ought to finish college before I think about getting married, sir, but I certainly am crazy about Bell, and the minute I get out, I hope to land a good job and be able to support her.’

‘It is your notion, then, that all Miss Annabel needs is to be provided with food and lodging? She seems to me to be quite adequately cared for already. Has it occurred to you that it would also be necessary for you to learn her language; the language I’ve reared her to speak?’

‘Her language?’

‘Quite! If you see this as in a glass, darkly, Miss Annabel might be willing to explain.’

Mr. Staybridge did not, as usual, embarrass them by snatching up his toys and going home; he embarrassed them more by sitting in easy indifference, reading Baron Corvo. If in the chill of that dry ice Annabel and Howard were too congealed for speech, their touching hands were voluble, and soundlessly they crept into the hall, out to a stiff white bench beside a stiff red plot of roses.

June, moon, tune — roses red and joybells soon; it should all have been a comedy of boy meets girl; but actually the young people were shaken with fear of Putnam Staybridge’s contempt, fear of a world where the commonplaces of jobs and rent and food had become as difficult as winning an empire; and most of all, fear of their own overwhelming and illogical love, released now by Putnam’s jibes.

Annabel dropped her protective street-corner flipness, all the ‘O.K.s’ and ‘Swells’ she had adopted equally from shopgirls and from the elegant Junior Leaguers. Howard was frightened out of his heavy humour. With his arm desperate about her shoulder, he could feel her tremble, her arm and shoulder tremble, as though every muscle were a shaken cord, and he was trembling himself as he struggled:

‘G-golly, I g-guess we got to do something about it. I can’t stand being away from you any more. All the fellows at Truxon, yellin’ and throwing books around, and even drinking gin, and I’m beginning to think gin is awfully bad for your digestion, and the bums, they come bursting into my room any hour, day or night, in those dirty ole sweaters and grey pants, and I want to throw ’em out — honest, Bell, I guess maybe I’m kind of crazy, but I can see you there standing in the dormitory hall, in a white dress, like a white flower the wind has blown there, and . . . But gosh, I wonder if I’m very intelligent? I don’t know if I really care so much for reading, except the comic strips.’