"It's when a man must wish he'd married" Miss Jennings said reflectively. "Having a leg off."
"Never forget William Smith" he objected.
" William Smith?" she echoed. "I don't remember."
"Perhaps he was a bit before your time. He got into a motor smash, lost both arms and Myra left him."
"Was he married?"
"But I've just told you! Yes Myra went. And she got her decree on incompatibility of temperaments."
"Perhaps that had been going on a long time John."
"It's very dangerous to lose a limb when you're married" he announced. "Two limbs are almost always fatal. So you watch out."
"Oh I wouldn't think much of a husband who left as soon as I happened to be maimed" she cried.
"The thing is they do. Any port in a storm without even a by your leave!"
"No John that's dreadful!"
He let out a great gay laugh.
"It's the way of the world" he explained. "Anyway, lucky old Arthur isn't married is he?"
"No, but all the same!"
"Forget it I was only joking" he said.
There was a pause while he fondly smiled and she seemed lost in thought.
"Will she ask me?" she inquired at last.
"Who darling?"
"Jane of course."
"What to? I can't tell how you mean?" he objected.
"This party she's to give so you can make up your mind whether you'll have one after."
"Naturally she will."
"Why darling?" she wanted to know.
"She'd better" he announced.
"I don't fancy Jane likes me" Miss Jennings insinuated.
"Ask us without each other?" he protested. "That would be unheard of, dear."
"Have the invitations gone out already John?"
"But most certainly not. Jane doesn't even realize she's giving a party yet, not before she and I have talked it over. And she can't if she won't ask you."
"John you're being very sweet, yet I wonder if Jane really likes me?"
"She loves you" he roared.
"No, that's going too far" she insisted. "You spoil it!"
"You don't understand" he said. "She depends on you. She knows very well I wouldn't come if you weren't there and Jane relies on me."
"And so what do you mean by that, darling?"
"Precisely the little I'm saying. Since her husband died she's never given anything without she had all her old men friends round her, she wouldn't dare."
"You say she'll invite me only because of you."
"That's so."
"Well then it's not very nice is it?"
"Liz darling you're trying to trap me. She adores you."
"Does she? I don't think I'll come then."
"Look darling" he said "with this frightful rain this is not one of those days that we can take our customary Sunday walk." He laughed. "Come Liz" he said "let's get back to bed."
"Aren't you awful! Oh I suppose so, all right" she replied, getting up to go at once, giving him a shy smile.
MISS Pomfret waved to her father as he left with Miss Jennings while Philip made as if to rise from his place.
When he had settled down again he said "Have you heard about this party my mother's to give?"
"Oh Philip, but when? And are you inviting me?"
"Of course."
"How kind! Oh dear how nice." She beamed upon him. "When is it?"
"There'll be weeks of talk yet. While she makes up her mind how not to ask a single one of our relations. No at the moment it's to be for my friends, only she knows quite well I haven't any."
"Surely that's nonsense Philip. What about the men you knew at school?"
"I've lost touch."
"Well it wasn't so long ago after all?"
"They none of them work in London" he said in a severe voice as though to discourage questions. "I don't know where they are now. But she accuses me of behaving as apparently I used to when she came down to my first school."
"You'll have to tell me a little more if I'm to understand" Miss Pomfret gently said.
"She was always in the car" he explained. "When we passed any of the other chaps I used to duck right down just as if" and here he copied his mother's emphatic speech "'just as if they had guns, repeating rifles.'"
"And did you?"
"Of course we every one of us did. You don't spend entire weeks with the creatures only to want to see them when you can get away for an hour or so. Besides there was too much chromium plate on the beastly thing. It was vulgar."
"Oh no Philip."
"Were you at school?"
"As a matter of fact I wasn't."
"And I suppose at a girls' establishment they did anything they could to show off?"
"I expect they did" she meekly replied.
"I used to see the girls out with their parents in hotels Mamma took me to tea" he muttered. "But the point, no, part of the point is that Mamma as she accused me of trying to duck every time we passed anyone, suited her action to the words or whatever the phrase may be and bumped her head down on the sofa she was sitting in to show me how I used to behave and smashed one of her eyebrows against a heavy glass ashtray she'd put beside herself." He laughed.
"Did she hurt her forehead?" Miss Pomfret inquired warily.
"Just a bump" he answered. "Sometimes Mamma is rather wonderful." He was smiling. "She's so violent."
"I think your mother's sweet Philip!"
"Well the fact is, when she hurt herself it set her off and I got the whole thing again, all over. How even at Eton I hadn't any friends, still never saw a soul these days, what was I doing with my life, all that sort of usual trouble. And lastly of course she wanted to know would she have to have all over again the whole of this wretched experience that had made her so miserably unhappy with little Penelope, when Pen grows up."
"Oh but Philip you aren't really making your mother unhappy are you?"
"It's just the way she speaks you understand. Why, are you the joy of your father's life at the moment?"
She laughed. "I really believe I am" she replied. "How is your kid sister anyway?"
"As well as can be expected. For the time being there's nothing on her mind of course. But even at Eton we didn't want to see each other either. It was torture going to the theatre the night before one went back, there were so many. They even sat fight next."
"You mean you simply couldn't bear to see them again now?"
"On no" he protested. "Of course it's quite different now. I just don't want to see any of 'em that's all."
"Well then you needn't."
"The only thing is" he said in a rueful way "I'm supposed to have this party for my twenty-firster."
"But Philip" she cried "in that case you can't not invite your friends."
"You know what it is with Mamma. The ones she does eventually ask will all come out of her set inevitably in the end. They won't be contemporaries of mine."
"I could rake up a few girls" she volunteered.
"I don't mean anything against her" he said, seeming to ignore Mary's offer. "I've known this happen before. And of course when Penelope's little time comes there'll be thousands of young men Mamma will have in, all that part of it is in my mother's blood. No, but where I am concerned, she's making an excuse to throw a party of her own. Apart from which one has to be sorry for parents. They had such a lot of money once and we've never seen what that was."
"I think it's a shame" she said rather mysteriously.
"If she wants to give her own 'do' why shouldn't she? And my twenty-firster provides the excuse because I know she can't afford two."
"But you should have your friends in for your own twenty-firster Philip."
"You don't understand" he said. "If I told her that, she's incredibly generous and she'd lend me the flat for the evening and enough money to give another."
"Then why don't you?"
"Because we can't afford it."