“Shut up,” said Brenda.
“Come here.”
When he had kissed her, she rubbed against his cheek in the way she had.
Polly's party was exactly what she wished it to be, an accurate replica of all the best parties she had been to in the last year; the same band, the same supper, and, above all, the same guests.
Hers was not the ambition to create a sensation, to have the party talked about in months to come for any unusual feature, to hunt out shy celebrities or introduce exotic strangers.
She wanted a perfectly straight, smart party and she had got it.
Practically everyone she asked had come.
If there were other, more remote worlds upon which she did not impinge, Polly did not know about them.
These were the people she was after, and here they were.
And looking round on her guests, with Lord Cockpurse who was for the evening loyally putting in one of his rare appearances at her side, she was able to congratulate herself that there were very few people present whom she did not want.
In other years people had taken her hospitality more casually and brought on with them anyone with whom they happened to have been dining. This year, without any conscious effort on her part, there had been more formality.
Those who wanted to bring friends had rung up in the morning and asked whether they might do so, and on the whole they had been cautious of even so much presumption.
People, who only eighteen months before would have pretended to be ignorant of her existence, were now crowding up her stairs.
She had got herself in line with the other married women of her world.
As they started to go up, Brenda said,
“You're not to leave me, please.
I'm not going to know anybody,” and Beaver again saw himself as the dominant male.
They went straight through to the band and began dancing, not talking much except to greet other couples whom they knew.
They danced for half an hour and then she said,
“All right, I'll give you a rest.
Only don't let me get left.”
She danced with Jock Grant-Menzies and two or three old friends and did not see Beaver again until she came on him alone in the bar.
He had been there a long time, talking sometimes to the couples who came in and out, but always ending up alone.
He was not enjoying the evening and he told himself rather resentfully that it was because of Brenda; if he had come there in a large party it would have been different.
Brenda saw he was out of temper and said,
“Time for supper.”
It was early, and the tables were mostly empty except for earnest couples sitting alone.
There was a large round table between the windows, with no one at it; they sat there.
“I don't propose to move for a long time, d'you mind?”
She wanted to make him feel important again so she asked him about the other people in the room.
Presently their table filled up.
These were Brenda's old friends, among whom she used to live when she came out and in the first two years of her marriage, before Tony's father died; men in the early thirties, married women of her own age, none of whom knew Beaver or liked him.
It was by far the gayest table in the room.
Brenda thought `How my poor young man must be hating this'; it did not occur to her that, from Beaver's point of view, these old friends of hers were quite the most desirable people at the party, and that he was delighted to be seen at their table.
“Are you dying of it?” she whispered.
“No, indeed, never happier.”
“Well I am.
Let's go and dance.”
But the band was taking a rest and there was no one in the ballroom except the earnest couples who had migrated there away from the crowd and were sitting huddled in solitude round the walls, lost in conversation.
“Oh dear,” said Brenda, “now we're done.
We can't back to the table … it almost looks as though we should have to go home.”
“It's not two.”
“That's late for me.
Look here, don't you come.
Stay and enjoy yourself.”
“Of course I'll come,” said Beaver.
It was a cold, clear night.
Brenda shivered and he put his arm around her in the taxi.
They did not say much.
“There already?”