Reading it through, he thought: ‘It’s a damned sight better and deeper than Lyall’s confounded poem.’ And without any obvious connexion he began to think of the girl he had met the day before. Curious that he had remembered her from Michael’s wedding, a transparent slip of a young thing like a Botticelli Venus, Angel, or Madonna – so little difference between them. A charming young thing, then! Yes, and a charming young woman now, of real quality, with a sense of humour and an understanding mind. Dinny Cherrell! Charwell they spelled it, he remembered. He wouldn’t mind showing her his poems; he would trust her reactions.
Partly because he was thinking of her, and partly because he took a taxi, he was late for lunch, and met Dinny on the doorstep of Dumourieux’s just as she was about to go away.
There is perhaps no better test of woman’s character than to keep her waiting for lunch in a public place. Dinny greeted him with a smile.
‘I thought you’d probably forgotten.’
‘It was the traffic. How can philosophers talk of time being space or space time? It’s disproved whenever two people lunch together. I allowed ten minutes for under a mile from Cork Street, and here I am ten minutes late. Terribly sorry!’
‘My father says you must add ten per cent to all timing since taxis took the place of hansoms. Do you remember the hansom?’
‘Rather!’
‘I never was in London till they were over.’
‘If you know this place, lead on! I was told of it, but I’ve not yet been here.’
‘It’s under ground. The cooking’s French.’
Divested of their coats, they proceeded to an end table.
‘Very little for me, please,’ said Dinny. ‘Say cold chicken, a salad, and some coffee.’
‘Anything the matter?’
‘Only a spare habit.’
‘I see. We both have it. No wine?’
‘No, thanks. Is eating little a good sign, do you think?’
‘Not if done on principle.’
‘You don’t like things done on principle?’
‘I distrust the people who do them – self-righteous.’
‘I think that’s too sweeping. You are rather sweeping, aren’t you?’
‘I was thinking of the sort of people who don’t eat because it’s sensual. That’s not your reason, is it?’
‘Oh! no,’ said Dinny, ‘I only dislike feeling full. And very little makes me feel that. I don’t know very much about them so far, but I think the senses are good things.’
‘The only things, probably.’
‘Is that why you write poetry?’
Desert grinned.
‘I should think you might write verse, too.’
‘Only rhymes.’
‘The place for poetry is a desert. Ever seen one?’
‘No. I should like to.’ And, having said that, she sat in slight surprise, remembering her negative reaction to the American professor and his great open spaces. But no greater contrast was possible than between Hallorsen and this dark, disharmonic young man, who sat staring at her with those eyes of his till she had again that thrill down her spine. Crumbling her roll, she said: ‘I saw Michael and Fleur last night at dinner.’
‘Oh!’ His lips curled. ‘I made a fool of myself over Fleur once. Perfect, isn’t she – in her way?’
‘Yes,’ and her eyes added: ‘Don’t run her down!’
‘Marvellous equipment and control.’
‘I don’t think you know her,’ said Dinny, ‘and I’m sure I don’t.’
He leaned forward. ‘You seem to me a loyal sort of person. Where did you pick that up?’
‘Our family motto is the word “Leal”. That ought to have cured me, oughtn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, abruptly, ‘whether I understand what loyalty is. Loyalty to what? To whom? Nothing’s fixed in this world; everything’s relative. Loyalty’s the mark of the static mind, or else just a superstition, and anyway the negation of curiosity.’
‘There are things worth being loyal to, surely. Coffee, for instance, or one’s religion.’
He looked at her so strangely that Dinny was almost scared.
‘Religion? Have you one?’
‘Well, roughly, I suppose.’
‘What? Can you swallow the dogmas of any religious creed? Do you believe one legend more true than another? Can you suppose one set of beliefs about the Unknowable has more value than the rest? Religion! You’ve got a sense of humour. Does it leave you at the word?’
‘No; only religion, I suppose, may be just a sense of an all-pervading spirit, and the ethical creed that seems best to serve it.’