``Nothing much has happened,''. said Tony. ``We've missed you. What did you find to do in London all this time?''
``Me? Oh I've been behaving rather badly to tell you the truth.''
``Buying things?''
``Worse. I've been carrying on madly with young men and I've spent heaps of money and I've enjoyed it very much indeed. But there's one awful thing.''
``What's that?''
``No, I think it had better keep. It's something you won't like at all.''
``You've bought a Pekingese.''
``Worse, far worse. Only I haven't done it yet. But I want to dreadfully.''
``Go on.''
``Tony, I've found a flat.''
``Well you'd better lose it again quick.''
``All right. I'll attack you about it again later. Meanwhile try not to brood about it.''
``I shan't give it another thought.''
``What's a flat, daddy?''
Brenda wore pyjamas at dinner, and afterwards sat close to Tony on the sofa and ate some sugar out of his coffee cup.
``I suppose all this means that you're going to start again about your flat?''
``Mmmm.''
``You haven't signed any papers yet have you.''
``Oh no.'' Brenda shook her head emphatically.
``Then no great harm's done.'' Tony began to fill his pipe.
Brenda knelt on the sofa, sitting back on her heels. ``Listen, you haven't been brooding?''
``No.''
``Because, you see, when you say `flat' you're thinking of something quite different to me. You mean by a flat, a lift and a man in uniform, and a big front door with knobs, and an entrance hall and doors opening in all directions, with kitchens and sculleries and dining rooms and drawing rooms and servants' bathrooms ... don't you, Tony?''
``More or less.''
``Exactly. Now I mean just a bedroom and a bath and a telephone. You see the difference? Now a woman I know--``
``Who?''
``Just a woman--has fixed up a whole house like that off Belgrave Square and they are three pounds a week, no rates and taxes, constant hot water and central heating, woman comes in to make bed when required, what d'you think of that?''
``I see.''
``Now this is how I look at it. What's three pounds a week? Less than nine bob a night. Where could one stay for less than nine bob a night with all those advantages. You're always going to the club and that costs more and I can't stay often with Marjorie because it's hell for her having me and anyway she's got that dog, and you're always saying when I come back in the evenings after shopping, `Why didn't you stay the night,' you say, `instead of killing yourself?' Time and again you say it. I'm sure we spend much more than three pounds a week through not having a flat. Tell you what, I'll give up Mr. Cruttwell. How's that?''
``D'you really want this thing?''
``Mmm.''
``Well, I'll have to see. We might manage it, but it'll mean putting off the improvements down here.''
``I don't really deserve it,'' she said, clinching the-matter. ``I've been carrying on anyhow this week.''
Brenda's stay at Hetton lasted only for three nights. Then she returned to London saying that she had to see about the flat. It did not, however, require very great attention. There was only the colour of the paint to choose and some few articles of furniture. Mrs. Beaver had them ready for her inspection, a bed, a carpet, a dressing table and chair--there was not room for more. Mrs. Beaver tried to sell her a set of needlework pictures for the walls, but these she refused, also an electric bed warmer, a miniature weighing machine for the bathroom, a frigidaire, an antique grandfather clock, a backgammon set of looking-glass and synthetic ivory, a set of prettily bound French eighteenth century poets, a massage apparatus, and a wireless set fitted in a case of Regency lacquer, all of which had been grouped in the shop for her as a `suggestion.' Mrs. Beaver bore Brenda no ill will for the modesty of her requirements; she was doing very well on the floor above with a Canadian lady who was having her walls covered with chromium plating at immense expense.
Meanwhile Brenda stayed with Marjorie, on terms which gradually became acrimonious. ``I'm sorry to be pompous,'' she said one morning, ``but I just don't want your Mr. Beaver hanging about the house all day and calling me Marjorie.''
``Oh well, the flat won't be long now.''
``And I shall go on saying that I think you're making a ridiculous mistake.''
``It's just that you don't like Mr. Beaver.''
``It isn't only that. I think it's hard cheese on Tony.''
``Oh, Tony's all right.''
``And if there's a row--``
``There won't be a row.''
``You never know. If there is, I don't want Allan to think I've been helping to arrange things.''
``I wasn't so disagreeable to you about Robin Beaseley.''
``There was never much in that,'' said Marjorie.
But with the exception of her sister's, opinion was greatly in favour of Brenda's adventure. The morning telephone buzzed with news of her; even people with whom she had the barest acquaintance were delighted to relate that they had seen her and Beaver the evening before at restaurant or cinema. It had been an autumn of very sparse and meagre romance; only the most obvious people had parted or come together, and Brenda was filling a want long felt by those whose simple, vicarious pleasure it was to discuss the subject in bed over the telephone. For them her circumstances shed peculiar glamour; for five years she had been a legendary, almost ghostly name, the imprisoned princess of fairy story, and now that she had emerged there was more enchantment in the occurrence, than in the mere change of habit of any other circumspect wife. Her very choice of partner gave the affair an appropriate touch of fantasy; Beaver, the joke figure they had all known and despised, suddenly caught up to her among the luminous clouds of deity. If, after seven years looking neither to right nor left, she had at last broken away with Jock Grant-Menzies or Robin Beaseley or any other young buck with whom nearly everyone had had a crack one time or another, it would have been thrilling no doubt, but straightforward, drawing-room comedy. The choice of Beaver raised the whole escapade into a realm of poetry for Polly and Daisy and Angela and all the gang of gossips.
Mrs. Beaver made no bones about her delight. ``Of course the subject has not been mentioned between John and myself, but if what I hear is true, I think it will do the boy a world of good. Of course he's always been very much in demand and had a great number of friends, but that isn't the same thing. I've felt for a long time a lack of something in him, and I think that a charming and experienced woman like Brenda Last is just the person to help him. He's got a very affectionate nature, but he's so sensitive that he hardly ever lets it appear ... to tell you the truth I felt something of the kind was in the air last week, so I made an excuse to go away for a few days. If I had been there things might never have come to anything. He's very shy and reserved even to me. I'll have the chess-men done up and sent round to you this afternoon. Thank you so much.''
And Beaver, for the first time in his life, found himself a person of interest and, almost of consequence. Women studied him with a new scrutiny, wondering what they had missed in him; men treated him as an equal, even as a successful fellow competitor. ``How on earth has he got away with it?'' they may have asked themselves, but now, when he came into Brat's, they made room for him at the bar and said, ``Well, old boy, how about one?''