He saw with surprise that it was a five-years-old smart novel, probably one she had found in the room, perhaps one left there by Alice on a visit. It belonged to that mixed tribe which accumulate in guest-rooms. He was surprised too that it held her interest, and then perceived that she read it gravely and with no recognition of its mordant wittiness, and that to Sabrina in her endearing ignorance, it was Life.

At first he wanted to take it away from her, and then he reflected that she had to know the worst some day— if it was the worst. And he reflected too that in a way it was life, but not with a capital L. It had doubtless presented no revelations to Alice five years ago, for instance. Alice knew people like that. Well, let’s face it, Alice herself belonged in a book like that. Alice and George. People who lived soft, and strove desperately to amuse themselves, chose and discarded partners in marriage almost as casually as though it was a bridge-game. Alice thought she loved George now, but—it was a rather sickening idea—how about five or six years from now? Alice would still be beautiful and would still want love. And George—let’s face it—would be a dull lover and a duller husband. There wasn’t much doubt that Alice was going to be bored, which would inevitably bore George. And when people like that became bored they were very likely to behave like almost any smart novel. George would find something young and bloodthirsty, and Alice in retaliation would find—what? He knew with a sudden gust of ghastly humor that first of all Alice would think of him, when George began to pall. And there, if he had come back alive, was the novel, and happening to himself. A close shave, he thought with the unerring, internal mirth he would never lose. A narrow squeak, if you like!

There was a companionable silence in the room, with the rain coming down outside.

He would have been less concerned at Sabrina’s absorption in the book if he had realized what already lay behind her in the way of reading-matter. No one had ever censored the books she took from the library shelves in the London flat, or inspected those she got from Boots. She had always chosen at blithe random, by a title, the picture on a paper dust-cover, or the opening sentence of Chapter One. In this way she had covered a lot of ground, from George Eliot and the Brontës to Ethel M. Dell, from Hardy and Galsworthy to Wallace and Waugh. Fortunately a great deal of what she read had passed her by, and some of it she misinterpreted. Most of the rest of it was not reassuring.