=ii=

_The Three Lovers_, a full-length novel which Swinnerton finished in
Devonshire in the spring of 1922, is a story of human beings in conflict,
and it is also a picture of certain phases of modern life. A young and
intelligent girl, alone in the world, is introduced abruptly to a kind of
life with which she is unfamiliar. Thereafter the book shows the
development of her character and her struggle for the love of the men to
whom she is most attracted. The book steadily moves

[Illustration: FRANK SWINNERTON]

through its earlier chapters of introduction and growth to a climax that
is both dramatic and moving. It opens with a characteristic descriptive
passage from which I take a few sentences:

"It was a suddenly cold evening towards the end of September.... The
street lamps were sharp brightnesses in the black night, wickedly
revealing the naked rain-swept paving-stones. It was an evening to make
one think with joy of succulent crumpets and rampant fires and warm
slippers and noggins of whisky; but it was not an evening for cats or
timid people. The cats were racing about the houses, drunken with primeval
savagery; the timid people were shuddering and looking in distress over
feebly hoisted shoulders, dreadfully prepared for disaster of any kind,
afraid of sounds and shadows and their own forgotten sins.... The wind
shook the window-panes; soot fell down all the chimneys; trees
continuously rustled as if they were trying to keep warm by constant
friction and movement."

The imagination which sees in the movement of trees an endeavour to keep
warm is not less sharp in its discernment of human beings. I will give one
other passage, a conversation between Patricia Quin, the heroine, and
another girl:

"'Do you mean he's in love with you?' asked Patricia. 'That seems to be
what's the matter.'

"'Oho, it takes two to be in love,' scornfully cried Amy. 'And I'm not in
love with him.'

"'But he's your friend.'

"'That's just it. He won't recognise that men and women _can_ be friends.
He's a very decent fellow; but he's full of this sulky jealousy, and he
glowers and sulks whenever any other man comes near me. Well, that's not
my idea of friendship.'

"'Nor mine,' echoed Patricia, trying to reconstruct her puzzled estimate
of their relations. 'But couldn't you stop that? Surely, if you put it
clearly to him....'

"Amy interrupted with a laugh that was almost shrill. Her manner was
coldly contemptuous.

"'