Tony left them to their discussion.
“D'you really want Mrs. Beaver to do up the morning room?”
“Not if you don't, sweet.”
“But can you imagine it — white chromium plating?”
“Oh, that was just an idea.”
Tony walked in and out between Mordred and Guinevere as he always did while they were dressing.
“I say,” he said, returning with his waistcoat. “You aren't going away tomorrow too, are you?”
“Must.”
He went back to Mordred for his tie and bringing it to Brenda's room again, sat by her side at the dressing table to fasten it.
“By the way,” said Brenda, “what did you think about keeping on Grimshawe? — it seems rather a waste.”
“You used always to say you couldn't get on without her.”
“Yes, but now I'm living at the flat everything's so simple.”
“Living?
Darling, you talk as though you had settled there for good.”
“D'you mind moving a second, sweet?
I can't see properly.”
“Brenda, how long are you going on with this course of economics?”
“Me?
I don't know.”
“But you must have some idea?”
“Oh it's surprising what a lot there is to learn … I was so backward when I started …”
“Brenda …”
“Now run and put on your coat.
They'll all be down stairs waiting for us.”
That evening Polly and Mrs. Beaver played backgammon.
Brenda and Veronica sat together on the sofa sewing and talking about their needlework; occasionally there were bursts of general conversation between the four women; they had the habit of lapsing into a jargon of their own which Tony did not understand; it was a thieves' slang, by which the syllables of each word were transposed.
Tony sat just outside the circle, reading under another lamp.
That night when they went upstairs, the three guests came to sit in Brenda's room and talk to her while she went to bed.
Tony could hear their low laughter through the dressing-room door.
They had boiled water in an electric kettle and were drinking Sedobrol together.
Presently, still laughing, they left and Tony went into Brenda's room.
It was in darkness, but hearing him come and seeing the square of light in the doorway, she turned on the little lamp by the bedside.
“Why, Tony,” she said.
She was lying on the dais with her head deep back in the pillows; her face was shining with the grease she used for cleaning it; one bare arm on the quilted eiderdown, left there from turning the switch.
“Why, Tony,” she said,
“I was almost asleep.”
“Very tired?”
“Mm.”
“Want to be left alone?”
“So tired … and I've just drunk a lot of that stuff of Polly's.”
“I see … well goodnight.”
“Goodnight … don't mind do you? … so tired.”
He crossed to the bed and kissed her; she lay quite still, with closed eyes.
Then he turned out the light and went back to the dressing room.
“Lady Brenda not ill, I hope?”
“No, nothing serious, thank you very much.
She gets rather done up in London, you know, during the week, and likes to take Sunday quietly.”
“And how are the great studies progressing?”
“Very well, I gather.
She seems keen on it still.”