in the old way. Jane,
indeed, would have moods in which she would talk continuously, and I
would suddenly think, watching her, 'You're trying to hide from
something--to talk it down.'

4

And then one evening Arthur and she met at my flat. Jane had been having
supper with me, and Arthur dropped in.

Jane said, 'Hallo, Arthur,' and Arthur said, 'Oh, hallo,' and I saw
plainly that the last person either had wanted to meet was the other.

Arthur didn't stay at all. He said he had come to speak to me about a
review he wanted me to do. It wasn't necessary that he should speak to me
about it at all; he had already sent me the book, and I hadn't yet read
it, and it was on a subject he knew nothing at all about, and there was
nothing whatever to say. However, he succeeded in saying something, then
went away.

Jane had hardly spoken to him or looked at him. She was reading an
evening paper.

She put it down when he had gone.

'Does Arthur come in often?' she asked me casually, lighting another
cigarette.

'No. Sometimes.'

After a minute or two, Jane said, 'Look here, K, I'll tell you something.
I'm not particularly keen on meeting Arthur for the present. Nor he me.'

'That's not exactly news, my dear.'

'No; it fairly stuck out just now, didn't it? Well, the fact is, we both
want a little time to collect ourselves, to settle how we stand....
Sudden deaths are a bad jar, K. They break things up.... Arthur and I
were more friends than Oliver liked, you know. He didn't like Arthur, and
didn't like my going about with him.... Oh, well, you know all that as
well as I do, of course.... And now he's dead.... It seems to spoil
things a bit.... I hate meeting Arthur now.'

And then an extraordinary thing happened. Jane, whom I had never seen
cry, broke down quite suddenly and cried. Of course it would have seemed
quite natural in most people, but tears are as surprising in Jane as they
would be in me. They aren't part of her equipment. However, she was out
of health just now, of course, and had had a bad shock, and was
emotionally overwrought; and, anyhow, she cried.

I mixed her some sal volatile, which, I understand, is done in these
crises. She drank it, and stopped crying soon.

'Sorry to be such an ass,' she said, more in her normal tone. 'It's this
beastly baby, I suppose.... Well, look here, K, you see what I mean.
Arthur and I don't want to meet just now. If he's likely to come in much,
I must give up comin