Martin's hand moved the engine across the floor. They came into the stripe of sunset.

"Wait a minute!" cried Janet. "Here's one of the pa.s.sengers."

"Put him in," said Martin. "And then the train goes round a sharp curve and smashes into a lot of people, bing!"

"Quick, I'll telephone for a nambulance. You adbretized Perfect Safety on this railroad. It said so in your booklet."

"Well, if people will sit down for a Picnic right on the main line - "

"Goodness, what a nasinine thing to do."

"They were using the hot rails to fry their bacon on."

"Here's the doctor. Are there any children hurt?"

"Children all safe," said Martin, looking carefully through the wreckage. "A lot of grown-ups badly damaged."

"Here's the pistol. Put them out of their misery."

"Bang-bang-bang!"

"They didn't suffer much. I'll go for the wrecking train."

"Janet!" exclaimed Phyllis. "What are you doing, running about the house in your pyjamas. And you've got sniffles already."

The two players looked up; but they could see nothing outside their tunnel of brightness. The voice seemed like imagination.

"Of course the railroad company will have to pay money for those valuable lives," said Martin regretfully."I'll get the blocks, we can build a norphan asylum for the surveyors."

"Not surveyors, survivors."

"Janet! Say good-night to Mr. Martin and run upstairs."

This time the command was unmistakable. Janet became aware of tall ominous figures emerging from the surrounding dusk.

"Good-night!" she cried hastily, and ran.

"I'm afraid Janet's manners are terrible," Phyllis said. "She ought to have shaken hands, but I don't like to call her back now, she'll catch more cold."

Two other forms appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Is tomorrow the Picnic?" they called anxiously.

Martin was still sitting on the floor, musing over the disaster. Janet halted halfway up and shouted. "He says you said d.a.m.n the Picnic."

Sylvia and Rose burst into snivels. There was a moment of difficult pause. Martin realized that something was happening and began collecting the train.

"You promised the Picnic for tomorrow," he said, looking up from where he was kneeling.

"Yes, yes, tomorrow, don't worry," George shouted to the children.

"Mr. Martin's been awfully kind at keeping them amused," said Phyllis. "Mr. Martin, Mr. and Mrs.

Brook, Miss Clyde. - George, turn on the light, Mr. Martin can't see us."

The b.u.t.ton clicked, the bulbs jumped to attention, mere loops of pale wire beside the orange shaft of sun.

Martin scrambled suddenly to his feet.

"How do you do," he said.

"What stunning towels," Ruth remarked as Phyllis was pointing out the hot-water tap. The embroidery of Phyllis's maiden initials was luxuriously illegible, in some sort of Old High German character. "Surely those didn't come with the house?"

"No; they're mine; all that's left of my trousseau. What George calls my pre-war towels."

But Ruth was too busy in her own thoughts to pursue little jokes.

"Your artist man is rather extraordinary," she said. "Why should any one so attractive need to be so bashful?"

"He's not really bashful. - There, I think you'll find everything you need."

The light twinkled on a tray of yellowish gla.s.ses on the sideboard. George unlocked the cupboard, took out a bottle, and split open a new box of cigarettes with his thumbnail. There's a consolation in having these small things to do, he thought. Meanwhile, what am I really thinking of? I suppose she's washing her hands. It's awkward having her downstairs. She'll want to change. . . .

I don't believe she's got a mirror in there. We can hardly expect her to use the bookcase panes."Excuse me a moment," he said. "Ben, pour the tonic. It's good stuff." Mr. Martin was still standing by the door uncertainly, holding the toy engine. Heavens, does the fellow have to be moved round like a chess man? He's so difficult to talk to, somehow. George made a cordial gesture, indicating that Mr. Martin might as well join Ben at the sideboard. Martin crossed the room obediently.

The anxious host glanced into the sitting room. Yes: Phyllis, with her usual skill, had turned the desk into a dressing table: there was a fresh doily on it, a vase of flowers, and the mirror from his own bureau upstairs. Already, though she hadn't entered it yet, the room was no longer his but Joyce's. It had become private, precious, and strange. Here, in the very centre of his own muddled affairs, was suddenly a kernel of unattainable magic. Why in G.o.d's name had Phyllis put her in his room? It was too savagely ironic. In my heart, in my mind, in my very bed, and I can't even speak to her. It's too farcical. If I didn't have to keep it secret we could all laugh about it. Secrecy is the only poison.

He carried in Joyce's suitcase and paint box, put them on the couch, and fled.

"Well, Ben, I saved my last bottle for this party. It'll help us live through the Picnic. Mr. Martin, aren't you drinking?"

"What is it?" asked Martin.

"Try it and see. You don't need to worry. It's real."

Ben held up his gla.s.s, prolonging antic.i.p.ation. The fine vatted aroma of the rye cheered his nostrils. Here at least was one trifle which helps a.s.suage the immense tedium of life.

"Funny to see the old place again," he said. "How well I remember those coloured panes. Well . . ."

"Never drink without a sentiment," said George.

"All right: stained gla.s.s windows."

"Is this your first visit?" Ben began politely; but the other guest was still coughing and gagging. His eyes were full of tears.

Not used to good stuff, George thought. You don't get much of this genuine rye nowadays. He and Ben waited, rather embarra.s.sed, until the other had stopped patting his chest. Ben lit a cigarette and blew a ring.

Martin's face brightened. He put out his finger and hooked the floating twirl.

"That's lovely!" he said. "How do you do it?"

Ben was pleased at this tribute to his only social accomplishment.

"Why, it's quite easy. Get a big mouthful of smoke, purse your lips in a circle, like the hole in a doughnut, and raise your tongue suddenly to push the smoke out."

"Do it again."

Ben looked so comic, shaping his mouth, Martin couldn't help laughing.

"You look like a catfish. Can you do it too?"

"Not so well as Ben. Gosh, didn't you ever see any one blow smoke rings before?""No. My father doesn't smoke."

Ben looked a little perplexed. He had an uneasy feeling that perhaps the artist was making fun of them in some obscure way.

Phyllis called from the stairs. "George, will you come up and speak to the children? They want to be rea.s.sured about the Picnic."

"Do I have to finish this medicine?" Martin asked.

George grinned at him, rather tickled by this drollery.

"You must do as you think best. Make yourselves at home, you fellows. I'll be back in a minute."

"Don't you like it?" said Ben.

"No."

"Well, I can help you."

"It was nice of you to blow a smoke ring to amuse me."

There was silence, which Ben concluded by taking the other gla.s.s of whisky.

"Happy days," he said.

"Tomorrow will be a happy day," Martin said. "We're going to be rea.s.sured by a Picnic."

"Have a cigarette," was all that Ben could think of.

"Who were the ladies you brought with you?"

"Well, one of them's my wife."

"Which, the pretty one?"

Ben poured himself another slug. He felt he needed it. He had a strong desire to laugh, but there was sincere inquiry in Mr. Martin's eyes. He really wanted to know.

"Ask them," he said.

Phyllis came into the room.

"It'll soon be dinner time. You people all ready?"

Martin held out his arms. It was so nearly the substance of her dream, she moved forward to enter his embrace. Ben's face of surprise checked her in time. She took Martin's hands.

"Mr. Martin is my guest of honour," she explained lightly.

"He seems to be," said Ben, and finished his gla.s.s.

They stood a moment. Then Martin said, "You didn't look at them."

"At what?"

"My hands. I mean, are they clean enough?"Janet and Sylvia were already in the two cots on the balcony; but their eyes were waiting for George, with that look of entreating expectancy worn by those who look upward from bed. In the l.u.s.trous garden air crickets were beginning to wheedle. The rickety old porch seemed an alcove of simpleness divided from the absurd tangled emotions of the house. But even here was pa.s.sion: the little white trousered figures sprang up, their strenuous arms clutched him, their eyes were dark with anxiety. With horror he saw how they appealed to him as omnipotent all-arranging arbiter. Him, the poor futile bungler! They crushed him with the impossible burden of their faith.

"Yes, we'll have the Picnic tomorrow. Now you go to sleep and get a good rest."

"Mother forgot to hear our prayers."

He stood impatient as they lengthily rehea.r.s.ed, one after the other, their confident innocent pet.i.tions. The clear voices chirruped, but he shut their words from his mind, as regardless as G.o.d. Would they never finish? To hear these dear meaningless desiderations was too tender a torment. He tried to think of other things - of anything - of the sea; of washing his hands and putting on a clean collar; of the striped brown and silver tie that he intended to wear tomorrow (Joyce had never seen it); and what on earth are we going to do to amuse these people after dinner?

". . . and Mother and Daddy and all friends kind and dear; and let tomorrow be a nice day for the Picnic . . .".

Poor little devils, he thought; they seem as far away from me as if they were kittens or puppies. People pretend that children are just human beings of a smaller size, but I think they're something quite different.

They live in a world with only three dimensions, a physical world immersed in the moment, a reasonable world, a world without that awful sorcery of a fourth measurement that makes us ill at ease. What is it their world lacks? Is it self-consciousness, is it beauty, is it s.e.x? (Three names for the same thing, perhaps.) Little Sylvia with her full wet eyes, what torments of desire she would arouse some day in some deluded stripling.

Strange world of theirs: a world that has no awareness of good and evil; a world merely pretty, whereas ours is beautiful. A world that knows what it wants; whereas we are never quite sure.

He looked at them with amazement. Where did they come from, how did they get there? They were more genuine than himself, they would still be in this incredible life long after he had been shovelled out of it. How soon would they begin to see through the furious pettiness of parents? See that we do everything we punish them for attempting, that we torture them for our own weakness, set their teeth on edge for the taste of our own green grapes?

He tucked them in, gave each rounded hill of blanket a consoling pat, and left them. Joyce was standing in the pa.s.sage. She had changed her clothes and was wearing a plain grey linen dress. He wanted to tell her that she was one of the unbelievably rare women who never have a pink strap of ribbon running loose across one shoulder. There must be some solution of that problem? A man would have abolished it long ago. But she's on her way to the bathroom, I suppose; it'll be more polite if I just stand aside and let her pa.s.s without saying anything. Besides, we can't talk here, right outside Ruth's door.

But she did not move. Evidently she had been watching his little scene with the children. In a flicker of the mind he wondered whether his part in it had looked creditable. He was afraid it had. For now, to her at any rate, he hankered to be known as the troubled imbecile he really was.

"And you wonder why I envy you," she said.

He didn't answer. He was busy reminding himself that that was what her eyes were like. It is only a fewtimes that any man has the chance or the will to search the innermost bravery of other human faces. He had thought much about her eyes, had imagined the fine glory of telling them about themselves.

Foreigners, he would call them; bright aliens not quite at home in the daily disasters of earth's commonplace. Foreigners, but he was on the pier waiting for them. They seemed to know that life is a precious thing and that we are always in danger of marring it. He imagined them as they would be if their shadow of questioning were skimmed away; if they were flooded with the light of complete surrender, of reckless trust. But how can these things be said? There is no code, he thought: so perhaps the wise presently abandon attempt to communicate. The gulf surrounds us all; only here and there on the horizon a reversed ensign shows where some stout spirit founders in silence. Or now and then, in the casual palaver of the day, slips out some fantastic phrase to show how man rises from clay to potter, can even applaud the nice malice of his own comedy.

He had got beyond the point where he could talk to her in trivialities. He must say all or nothing.

"Lucky children," she said. "I wish I had someone to hear my prayers. - If I had, I might say some."

"I didn't hear them. I wasn't listening; I couldn't. Oh, Joyce, Joyce, there's so much I want to say, and your eyes keep interrupting me."

He thrilled a little at himself, and felt better. For he had his Moments: unforeseen felicities when he said the humorous and necessary word: and when his Moments came he could not help gloating over them.