'What does it matter?
Make anything up.
Nobody will mind, they don't any of them know me.'
'Come now, my dear,' she said, patting my hand, 'try and make the effort.
Put on this charming blue.
Think of Maxim.
You must come down for his sake.'
'I'm thinking about Maxim all the time,' I said.
'Well, then, surely…?'
'No,' I said, tearing at my nails, rocking backwards and forwards on the bed.
'I can't, I can't.'
Somebody else knocked on the door.
'Oh, dear, who on earth is that?' said Beatrice, walking to the door.
'What is it?'
She opened the door.
Giles was standing just outside.
'Everyone has turned up.
Maxim sent me up to find out what's happening,' he said.
'She says she won't come down,' said Beatrice.
'What on earth are we going to say?'
I caught sight of Giles peering at me through the open door.
'Oh, Lord, what a frightful mix-up,' he whispered. He turned away embarrassed when he noticed that I had seen him.
'What shall I say to Maxim?' he asked Beatrice.
'It's five past eight now.'
'Say she's feeling rather faint, but will try and come down later.
Tell them not to wait dinner.
I'll be down directly, I'll make it all right.'
'Yes, right you are.' He half glanced in my direction again, sympathetic but rather curious, wondering why I sat there on the bed, and his voice was low, as it might be after an accident, when people are waiting for the doctor.
'Is there anything else I can do?' he said.
'No,' said Beatrice, 'go down now, I'll follow in a minute.'
He obeyed her, shuffling away in his Arabian robes.
This is the sort of moment, I thought, that I shall laugh at years afterwards, that I shall say
'Do you remember how Giles was dressed as an Arab, and Beatrice had a veil over her face, and jangling bangles on her wrist?'
And time will mellow it, make it a moment for laughter.
But now it was not funny, now I did not laugh.
It was not the future, it was the present.
It was too vivid and too real.
I sat on the bed, plucking at the eiderdown, pulling a little feather out of a slit in one corner.
* Would you like some brandy?' said Beatrice, making a last effort.
'I know it's only Dutch courage, but it sometimes works wonders.'
'No,' I said. 'No, I don't want anything.'
'I shall have to go down.
Giles says they are waiting dinner.
Are you sure it's all right for me to leave you?'
'Yes.
And thank you, Beatrice.'
'Oh, my dear, don't thank me.
I wish I could do something.'
She stopped swiftly to my looking-glass and dabbed her face with powder.
'God, what a sight I look,' she said, 'this damn! veil is crooked I know.