erything to learn, absurdly presuming upon the very quality which
would vanish first. And she was a fool. She obviously had no sense,
not even the beginnings of sense. She was wearing an impudently
expensive frock which must have cost quite five times as much as
Christine's own, though the latter in the opinion of the wearer was
by far the more authentically _chic_. And she talked proudly at large
about her losses on the turf and of the swindles practised upon her.
Christine admitted that the girl could make plenty of money, and would
continue to make money for a long, long time, bar accidents, but her
final conclusion about Alice was: "She will end on straw."

The supper was over. The conversation had never been vivacious, and
now it was half-drowned in champagne. The girls had wanted to hear
about the war, but the Major, who had arrived in a rather dogmatic
mood, put an absolute ban on shop. Alice had then kept the talk, such
as it was, upon her favourite topic--revues. She was an encyclopaedia
of knowledge concerning revues past, present, and to come. She had
once indeed figured for a few grand weeks in a revue chorus, thereby
acquiring unique status in her world. The topic palled upon both Aida
and Christine. And Christine had said to herself: "They are aware of
nothing, those two," for Aida and Alice had proved to be equally and
utterly ignorant of the superlative social event of the afternoon, the
private view at the Reynolds Galleries--at which indeed Christine had
not assisted, but of which she had learnt all the intimate details
from G.J. What, Christine demanded, _could_ be done with such a pair
of ninnies?

She might have been excused for abandoning all attempt to behave as
a woman of the world should at a supper party. Nevertheless, she
continued good-naturedly and conscientiously in the performance of her
duty to charm, to divert, and to enliven. After all, the ladies
were there to captivate the males, and if Aida and Alice dishonestly
flouted obligations, Christine would not. She would, at any rate, show
them how to behave.

She especially attended to G.J., who having drunk little, was taciturn
and preoccupied in his amiabilities. She divined that something was
the matter, but she could not divine that his thoughts were saddened
by the recollection at the Guinea-Fowl of the lovely music which he
had heard earlier in his drawing-room and by the memory of the Major's
letters and of what the Major had said