king or thinking, or walking in the bush to study the flora of Australia. Once she suggested, "If you like, I shall come with you. I shall take you to places that probably no one else has seen. Only, you mustn't mind crawling and scrambling. And sometimes there are snakes." He could smile very obligingly. He said, "That is a good idea. Yes. Why have we not thought of it before? Yes. Some day. When there is more time." Because there were also social engagements: gentlemen were brought, who told him about their sheep, and ladies, who wished to be told about Home, some mythical land that existed largely in their imaginations. A lot of this did at last surprise the visitor, for it had never occurred to him that sheep could be taken seriously, and together with his English acquaintances, he had always considered that, of all civilizations, real and imagined, only the Italian was worthy of consideration. All the time Mrs Hare remained aware that something must be done for Mary, and so it was decided to give the ball. This was such an undertaking in itself that it did not occur to her how her daughter might be affected by it. The latter did venture, "Do you think Cousin Eustace cares about dancing? He is far too polite to say whether he does or not." But already, mentally, the mother was at the dressmaker's. She was calculating how many oyster patties, and wondering whether in the final hour the maids would obey her orders. Even on the night, everyone was inclined to ignore Mary Hare. Those who were kind enough thought to respect her feelings by not noticing her appearance, but those who were cruel hoped to spare their own by refusing to see what could only upset them. She appeared dressed in a silvery white, because she was a young girl, and this was to be the moment of her triumph, or sacrifice. She stood about, touching the papery stuff of her skirt with disbelieving hands, wearing jewels which her mother had brought from her own box: a little brooch in knots of pearls, and pearl dog-collar which the mother herself no longer wore, and which had lost much of its lustre from lying on velvet instead of on living flesh. So there she was, dressed to kill, as one young fellow remarked, only it was Mary who was killed, by her own pearl dog-collar. Certainly it was rather tight. She was always inclined to be red, however, in patches, according to weather and emotion, to say nothing of rough. Her hands caught in the splendid stuff of her silvery dress, and she was reminded of the many awkwardnesses of behaviour of which she had been guilty. Perhaps the most grotesque detail of her whole appearance, those who discussed it remembered afterwards, was a little bunch of ridiculous flowers that she had pinned half-wilting at her waist: frail fuchsia, and rank geranium, and pinks, and camomile-all stuffed together, and trembling, and falling. It did certainly look peculiar, and most unsuccessful, but she had not been able to resist one touch of what she knew by heart. The evening developed, in gusts of music, and tinkling of glass. The ugly, forgotten girl should have felt miserable, but was preserved finally from unhappiness by the wonder of it, by the long shadows and the pools of light, by the extraordinary, revealing faces of men and women, by receiving a glass of lemonade, off a silver salver, from a servant who pretended not to recognize, in their own house. There were a great many important guests: landowners, professional men and their wives-only those who were rich, hence socially acceptable. And house guests. The bachelors' quarters were full of young men down from the country, with high spirits, good teeth, and brick-red skins. And the dancing. And the dancing. Mary Hare, without aspiring, loved to watch, from some familiar corner, protected by mahogany or gilt, in cave of chalcedony or malachite, peering out. From there the dancers could be seen riding the swell of music (the best that Sydney could provide) in the full arrogance of their intentions. Or, suddenly, they would lose control, whirled around by the unsuspected eddies. But willingly. As they leaned back inside the slippery funnels of the music, they would have allowed themselves to be sucked down, the laughter and the conversation trembling on their transparent teeth. There was, in particular, the girl Helen Antill, whom some considered, in spite of her beauty and assurance-_extravagant__. Miss Antill wore a dress embroidered with little mirrors, oriental it could have been, which reflected the lights, and even, occasionally, a human feature. She carried, moreover, a fan, curiously set in a piece of irregular coral resembling a hand. The fan was of peacocks' feathers. Most unlucky. But Miss Antill could not have been perturbed. Mary Hare, watching, thought she might have loved something like this, just as she fell spontaneously in love with the smooth limbs of certain trees, the texture of marble, and long, immaculate legs of thoroughbred horses spanking at their exercise. Even Mrs Hare became carried away by Miss Antill's performance, and although she had at first suffered qualms on seeing the effect her guest would have upon those others present, admiration overcame her protective instincts as a mother, and she began to move quickly through her house, searching and frowning, her grey mist of chiffon trailing like an obsession after her. "Where is Cousin Eustace?" she asked cursorily of Mary. "It is some time since I noticed him," replied her daughter, and as she diverted her attention, realized how strange it was that she should be addressing her own mother. Mrs Hare frowned again. At the point of sacrificing a daughter, she continued to expect that the latter should do her duty. "You should see to it that he is not alone. When there is nobody else, you should keep him company. In fact, any young girl of serious intentions makes sure that hers is the company he wants." Then Mrs Hare sighed, realizing the difficulty of most situations. "Men do not know what they want without a little guiding." "But I should hate to _guide__ someone," replied Mary. "The way you say it you make it sound like _drag__!" despaired the mother. "I meant to imply that a slight touch on the elbow works wonders." "Cousin Eustace hates to be touched." Mrs Hare preferred to interrupt a conversation that had become so physical. She would bear her cross, and in becoming thus a martyr, she was convinced that only she herself was aware of the source of her martyrdom. So she continued the search for her relative, strengthened by her disappointments, and the vision of Miss Antill in her successful dress. Eustace Cleugh had, in fact, performed most nobly almost all that had been expected of him that night. He had appeared to listen attentively to all those statistics with which the graziers had provided him. He had lent a sympathetic ear to graziers' wives, condemned to use up their lives on Australian soil, removed from all those material advantages which their sensibility, not to say spirituality, required. He had danced, how he had danced with the daughters. At least, his body had accepted the dictatorship of music, and his face had not let him down. But now he had gone upstairs, into the study of his Cousin Norbert Hare, to nurse his numbness, and to look through an album of engravings of German churches in the Gothic style. Here his Cousin Eleanor found him. "Eustace," she exclaimed, "I cannot imagine how you have allowed yourself to overlook Miss Antill. Such an exquisite dancer, and a lovely girl. I cannot rest until I see you lead her out." And she took him by the wrist, _guiding__, as she was convinced. Eustace Cleugh was far too well brought up to wrench himself free of gentle compulsion. All he said was, "Yes, Miss Antill is very lovely. " So Mary Hare watched their cousin brought downstairs. She watched him move out across the treacherous floor. That he was _brought__, and that he no more than _moved__, was something which perhaps only Mary noticed, but she, of course, spent so much of her time observing timid behaviour: of birds, for instance. Now here was her cousin, Eustace Cleugh, netted by the music and Miss Antill. How the mirrors in the dress flashed and reflected. Eustace did not struggle, but revolved most correctly, holding his partner; Mary alone saw how he was held. Almost the colour of nougat, his face asked the expected questions: about theatrical entertainments, the races and the weather. In the short space of his visit, he had grown surprisingly well informed on matters of local importance. But Miss Antill seemed to remain unconvinced. As they revolved and revolved, the phrases into which she bit could have tasted peculiar. She could not quite believe in some _thing__, some failure-was it her own? Or could the bird have died before the kill? They continued, however, to revolve. As Miss Antill clutched her partner's expensive cloth and the travesty of experience, she could have been flickering, although it was attributed by almost her entire audience to the clash between light and mirrors. Such splendour as hers did not encounter uncertainties. Then there was a pause in the music, and Mr Cleugh did behave very oddly, everybody agreed. He simply excused himself, wiped his face with a horribly white handkerchief, and walked away. It was in the end far less humiliating for Miss Antill, in spite of the slight she had suffered, for practically the whole population of the bachelors' quarters rushed upon her, to say nothing of several susceptible solicitors and elderly, unsuspected graziers. Eustace Cleugh disappeared in the direction of the terrace. One or two ladies just noticed in the confusion of movement that dotty Mary went, or rushed, rather, after him, dropping wilted flowers as she ran, but everybody was too distracted by the scene they had just witnessed to envisage further developments of an incomprehensible nature. Besides, they had been taught firmly to suppress, like wind in company, the rise of unreason in their minds. Eustace was on the terrace, Mary found, not quite in darkness, for the lights of the house cast a certain glow, tarnished, but comforting. "Oh," she began, "I shall go away if you would rather." Though she would have hated to be sent. "No," he said. "There is no reason to go away. In this glass house. One is fully exposed, everywhere." "Is it different, then, in other houses?" He laughed. He sounded almost natural. "No," he replied. "I suppose not." "How you hated it," she said. "The dance with Miss Antill. I am sorry." He began to tremble. If she had not pitied, she might have been shocked. But there had been moments when she had absolved even her father from being a man. Cousin Eustace did not speak. He stood and trembled. She touched some ivy. Painfully. "And you will not forget it," she said. "There comes a point where one can't remember everything," Eustace replied, with reason as well as feeling. Then she touched the back of his hand, and he did not withdraw. Of course her skin told her immediately that she could have been a dog, but she was grateful to be accepted if only in that form. In fact, she would not have thought of expecting more, and mercifully it had never yet occurred to her to think of herself as a woman. After a bit, he began to cough and move about without direction or elegance, like an ordinary person when nobody is there. Rather clumsily. But he did not repudiate his companion. "Oh, dear!" He sighed, and laughed, but again roughly, and unlike him. "Do you ever crumble? Suddenly? Without warning?" "Yes," she cried. "Oh, yes! Often. Truly." It was most important that he should know. But he was yawning. It could have been that he had not heard her reply, or that he had heard, and did not believe in the existence of anything outside the closed circle of himself. She saw, however, that he was tamed, and that in future she might walk calmly, though quietly, in his vicinity, and watch him, and he would not mind. Only soon after the ball at Xanadu, Cousin Eustace resumed his tour of the world, as had always been intended, and took refuge finally on the island of Jersey, with a housekeeper, and what eventually became a famous collection of porcelain. Even if her husband had allowed it, Mrs Hare would never have been able to forget how her cousin had insulted her guest. What she did forget, conveniently, was that she had expected of him something impossible, not to say indelicate. It was only in after life, in the régurgitation of memories, that she sometimes came across her true motive for giving the ball at Xanadu. It would drift up to the surface of her mind, almost complete, almost explicit, but always it had a horrid, quickly-to-be-rejected taste. If Mary was less upset by Eustace Cleugh's behaviour, it was because she already expected less of the human animal, and in consequence was not surprised when he diverged from the course which other people intended he should take. The ugliness and weakness which his nature revealed at such moments were, she sensed, far closer to the truth. So she could understand and pity her cousin, even understand and pity her father, even when the latter looked at her with hate for what she saw and understood. In her time she had seen dogs receive a beating for having glimpsed their masters' souls. She was no dog, certainly, and her father had not beaten her, but there had been one occasion when he did start shooting at the chandelier. It was a summer evening, on which the weather had not broken. The expected storm still hung heavy on the leaden mountains to the west, and the air was full of flying ants, dashing themselves against glass and flesh, and fretting off their wings in the last stages of a life over which they seemed to have no control. As the servants, with the exception of an old coachman, who was somewhere in the region of the stables, had not yet returned from a picnic, the family had just finished helping themselves to a supper of cold fowl. This fowl had been coated, all with the best intentions, with an egg sauce, to which in the heat and the dusk the flying ants were fatally attracted, their reddish bodies squirming, with wings, without, as they died upon the baroque carcass of the anointed fowl. "Loathsome creatures!" protested Mrs Hare, to whom any insect was a pest. Mary did not contribute an opinion, as the remarks of parents seldom seemed to ask for confirmation, but continued to eat, or munch, rather loudly, a crisp stick of celery, and to scratch herself, because the heat had made her prickly. In intolerable circumstances, she alone was tolerably comfortable. To the others, it was insufferable. The light in the dining room had turned a dark brown. Then Norbert Hare took the fowl by its surviving drumstick, and flung it through the open window, where it fell into a display of perennial phlox. It was one of his misfortunes to be led repeatedly to ruin his effects. He was still eating. His mouth was, in fact, too full. His cheeks were swollen, and his eyes appeared almost white. "Norbert!" cried his wife. "Whatever are the maids going to say?" Knowing that she herself, with a lantern, would rummage amongst the phlox. Then Norbert Hare took a loaf of bread, and flung it after the boiled fowl. He took a carving knife, and decanter of port wine, and threw. He felt freer. His wife began to cry. "There," he said, for himself. "But it is never possible to free oneself. Not entirely." His wife cried and cried. "I am to blame," offered the daughter, in case that was what they wanted. "If we are to decide on the objects of blame," her father shouted, "it could well be the boiled fowl." And seemed to madden entirely. He was running and pouncing on some intention not yet matured. Then he seemed to remember, and went to a desk, and got out the pistols. In the drawing-room at Xanadu, separated from the dining-room by folding doors, there was a chandelier of exceptional loveliness, which money had brought from some dismembered European house, and of which the crystal fruit now hung above antipodean soil. The great thing loomed and brooded, at times fiery, at times dreamily opalescent, but always enticing away from the endless expanse of flat thought. Mary Hare loved it, though she had always believed her passion to be secret. Now her father went, after loading, and shot into the chandelier. He looked very small and ridiculous standing beneath the transparent branches. "Munching! Munching!" he shouted. And shot. "O God, save us all!" he shouted. And shot. There fell at intervals an excruciating crystal rain. How much actual damage was done, it was not yet possible to estimate, although Mrs Hare did attempt spasmodically. "There!" shouted Norbert Hare. An