“What do you think of Marius?” she said.
“I like him.”
“Do you admire him?”
“Yes, I think I do.” Admire was not a word that had occurred to me before.
“I can’t think why everyone admires him,” she said. “I think it’s ridiculous. It shows what children people are.”
“Does everyone admire him?”
“Oh yes. All your sort of people. I can’t understand it. If you only knew what my friends, my real friends, think of him, how they laugh at him!”
“Why?”
“Really laugh at him!”
“Then they must envy. . ”
“Oh envy, that is all you can think of, as if anything were so obvious. . ”
“But. . ”
“You’re so serious, so silly, but I should have thought that even you would have seen through Marius!”
“Then why did you ask me to meet him?”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh.”
And then, when we had gone to meet Marius in the inevitable pub round the corner, I was able to leave Alice temporarily and join Marius and his friend as they stood at the bar in conversation. Marius glanced at Alice over his shoulder and then looked at me in a mocking, knowledgeable way, as if again there was in him a tendency to laugh which, owing to exigencies of the battle, he had to suppress; and when I rejoined Alice I felt that I had been drawn a little closer into the struggle although I still did not know what it was about.
Alice was restless. She made no pretence of geniality with me. She kept on glancing at Marius and his friend, and she was tossing her hair back from her face in a gesture that I knew was one of annoyance. “Look at them,” she said. “What on earth are they talking about?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Fancy coming here just to talk. About themselves, too, I expect. Creeping out like moths after dark to talk about themselves.”
“What is Marius’s history?” I said.
“History? I don’t think he has one. I wouldn’t dream of asking him, anyway. It’s only people like you, darling, who would ask people their history.”
She had never called me “darling” before. I went on hurriedly: “But what does he do? What did he do in the war, for instance?”
“I don’t know. I don’t suppose he does anything. I think he only came here after the war. What does it matter anyway? Why do you want to know about him? Do you think you can understand people just by finding out about their lives?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well you can’t. And if you want to know about Marius look at that man who’s with him now. You can find out more about a person from small things like that than from the story of their lives.”
The man was rather sinister. A thick fair-haired man with an expressionless face and tiny intent eyes: a fair moustache and grey flannel trousers and the musty military look of a staff officer. He was talking to Marius and smoking delicately, like a woman. Marius was watching him.
“What on earth can they be doing?” Alice said; and then, drawn irresistibly to attack them, she called out “Marius, can you get us a drink?”
Marius turned to her, and his companion looked sullen. Alice was smiling serenely like someone expecting to be photographed. Then Marius murmured something to the man and they came over to us. Marius introduced him as Mr. Jackson.
“How do you do,” Alice said. “I hope we didn’t interrupt your conversation.”
“Not at all,” the man said formally. He wore a thin striped tie, and his face had the rough scrubbed look of a rubber sponge. He reminded me of the men in raincoats at the political meeting. He did not sit down.
“Do go on talking if you want to,” Alice said. “I am sure you must have terribly important things to say to each other.”
The man stood stiffly, hating her. Marius said to him quietly, “I am sorry that there is nothing more I can do.”
“You will not be there?” the man said.
“No,” Marius said.
“How exciting!” Alice said. “It sounds like a robbery!”
The man went on hating her out of his small scrubbed eyes. “You will be expected,” he said to Marius.
“Yes,” Marius said.
“With the guns and the dynamite?” Alice mocked.
The man turned his back on her. He nodded abruptly to Marius. “I will leave you to this,” he said. Then he walked out of the room. Marius sat down.
Alice began, “God, what a man. I could smell him, literally smell him. I’ve never met such a sinister man in my life.”
Marius said nothing.
Alice turned to me and went on “Darling, now you see what it’s like when men get together, how dreadful they are, how creepy, really, I think that nowadays men would rather go out with each other than with a woman.”
She was speaking to me, but the battle was with Marius. He said nothing, and she went on —
“Darling, how glamorous you look. I’m sure you wouldn’t rather go out with a man like that, would you darling. Look at Marius now, isn’t he dreadful, I think he must have caught some terrible disease.”
Marius was sitting thoughtfully, twirling his glass, and I wondered if in these silly moments I was going to lose the chance of knowing him for ever. I wanted Alice to go, I wanted to be alone with him, but Alice seemed to be carrying the battle on to indefensible territory so that Marius would have to retreat and I should lose him in the chaos. All these ‘darlings’, these sneers at Marius, were part of her tactics; and I remembered how Marius had said that she might want us to hate each other. I was powerless, and it seemed that Marius was powerless too: but then Alice, incensed by his silence, blundered. She spoke to him.
“Marius,” she said, “what on earth were you doing with a man like that?”
“What?” Marius said.
“That’s a man who would stick a knife into you quicker than a piece of meat.”
“A piece of meat?” Marius said.
“Oh don’t be so dull.”
“He’s a vegetarian,” Marius said.
Alice turned away. She shook her pale dangling hair from her forehead, and I wanted to cheer.
“He’s head of the greengrocer’s guild,” Marius said. “He’s called Munroe.”
“Oh dear,” Alice said.
“The last time he ate meat,” Marius said, “he was fined forty shillings by his union.”
“Marius,” Alice said, “if you go on like this I shall leave.”
“He was very upset about it,” Marius said. “He told me that it felt as if there was someone always behind him with a carrot.”
“I warn you,” Alice said. “I can’t stand it when you are so dull.”
“He said it was worse than being a donkey,” Marius said.
“I’m going,” Alice said.
“I’m sorry,” Marius said. “Thank you very much for asking me round.”