height what
his chin lacked in prominence. His nose might have been longer, but it
would pass. His eyes might have been blue and not green. But his coat
was very well cut and, discreetly padded, made him seem robuster than
he actually was. His legs, in their white casing, were long and elegant.
Satisfied, he descended the stairs. Most of the party had already
finished their breakfast. He found himself alone with Jenny.

"I hope you slept well," he said.

"Yes, isn't it lovely?" Jenny replied, giving two rapid little nods.
"But we had such awful thunderstorms last week."

Parallel straight lines, Denis reflected, meet only at infinity. He
might talk for ever of care-charmer sleep and she of meteorology till
the end of time. Did one ever establish contact with anyone? We are
all parallel straight lines. Jenny was only a little more parallel than
most.

"They are very alarming, these thunderstorms," he said, helping himself
to porridge. "Don't you think so? Or are you above being frightened?"

"No. I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lying down."

"Why?"

"Because," said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, "because lightning
goes downwards and not flat ways. When you're lying down you're out of
the current."

"That's very ingenious."

"It's true."

There was a silence. Denis finished his porridge and helped himself
to bacon. For lack of anything better to say, and because Mr. Scogan's
absurd phrase was for some reason running in his head, he turned to
Jenny and asked:

"Do you consider yourself a femme superieure?" He had to repeat the
question several times before Jenny got the hang of it.

"No," she said, rather indignantly, when at last she heard what Denis
was saying. "Certainly not. Has anyone been suggesting that I am?"

"No," said Denis. "Mr. Scogan told Mary she was one."

"Did he?" Jenny lowered her voice. "Shall I tell you what I think of
that man? I think he's slightly sinister."

Having made this pronouncement, she entered the ivory tower of her
deafness and closed the door. Denis could not induce her to say anything
more, could not induce her even to listen. She just smiled at him,
smiled and occasionally nodded.

Denis went out on to the terrace to smoke his after-breakfast pipe and
to read his morning paper. An hour later, when Anne came down, she found
him still reading. By this time he had got to the Court Circular and
the Forthcoming Weddings. He got up to meet her as