absolutely right you are!’
‘I’ve known Ann for a great many years. I’m very fond of her.’
‘I know. She has often spoken about you. And, of course, I know of you from other sources.’
Dame Laura gave him a cheerful grin.
‘Oh yes, I’m one of the best-known women in England. Always sitting on committees, or airing my views on the wireless, or laying down the law generally on what’s good for humanity. However, I do realize one thing and that is that whatever one accomplishes in life, it is really very little and could always quite easily have been accomplished by somebody else.’
‘Oh, come now,’ Richard protested. ‘Surely that’s a very depressing conclusion to come to?’
‘It shouldn’t be. Humility should always lie behind effort.’
‘I don’t think I agree with you.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘No. I think that if a man (or woman, of course) is ever to accomplish anything worth doing, the first condition is that he must believe in himself.’
‘Why should he?’
‘Come now, Dame Laura, surely—’
‘I’m old-fashioned. I would prefer that a man should have knowledge of himself and belief in God.’
‘Knowledge—belief, aren’t they the same thing?’
‘I beg your pardon, they’re not at all the same thing. One of my pet theories (quite unrealizable, of course, that’s the pleasant part about theories) is that everybody should spend one month a year in the middle of a desert. Camped by a well, of course, and plentifully supplied with dates or whatever you eat in deserts.’
‘Might be quite pleasant,’ said Richard, smiling. ‘I’d stipulate for a few of the world’s best books, though.’
‘Ah, but that’s just it. No books. Books are a habit-forming drug. With enough to eat and drink, and nothing—absolutely nothing—to do, you’d have, at last, a fairly good chance to make acquaintance with yourself.’
Richard smiled disbelievingly.
‘Don’t you think most of us know ourselves pretty well?’
‘I certainly do not. One hasn’t time, in these days, to recognize anything except one’s more pleasing characteristics.’
‘Now what are you two arguing about?’ asked Ann, coming in with a glass in her hand. ‘Here’s your brandy and soda, Laura. Edith’s just bringing tea.’
‘I’m propounding my desert meditation theory,’ said Laura.
‘That’s one of Laura’s things,’ said Ann, laughing. ‘You sit in a desert and do nothing and find out how horrible you really are!’
‘Must everyone be horrible?’ asked Richard dryly. ‘I know psychologists tell one so—but really—why?’
‘Because if one only has time to know part of oneself one will, as I said just now, select the pleasantest part,’ said Dame Laura promptly.
‘It’s all very well, Laura,’ said Ann, ‘but after one has sat in one’s desert and found out how horrible one is, what good will it do? Will one be able to change oneself?’
‘I should think that would be most unlikely—but it does at least give one a guide as to what one is likely to do in certain circumstances, and even more important, why one does it.’
‘But isn’t one able to imagine quite well what one is likely to do in given circumstances? I mean, you’ve only got to imagine yourself there?’
‘Oh Ann, Ann! Think of any man who rehearses in his own mind what he is going to say to his boss, to his girl, to his neighbour across the way. He’s got it all cut and dried—and then, when the moment comes, he is either tongue-tied or says something entirely different! The people who are secretly quite sure they can rise to any emergency are the ones who lose their heads completely, while those who are afraid they will be inadequate surprise themselves by taking complete grasp of a situation.’
‘Yes, but that’s not quite fair. What you’re meaning now is that people rehearse imaginary conversations and actions as they would like them to be. They probably know quite well it wouldn’t really happen. But I think fundamentally one does know quite well what one’s reactions are and what—well, what one’s character is like.’
‘Oh, my dear child.’ Dame Laura held up her hands. ‘So you think you know Ann Prentice—I wonder.’
Edith came in with the tea.
‘I don’t think I’m particularly nice,’ said Ann, smiling.
‘Here’s Miss Sarah’s letter, ma’am,’ said Edith. ‘You left it in your bedroom.’
‘Oh, thank you, Edith.’
Ann laid down the still unopened letter by her plate. Dame Laura flashed a quick look at her.
Richard Cauldfield drank his cup of tea rather quickly and then excused himself.
‘He’s being tactful,’ said Ann. ‘He thinks we want to talk together.’
Dame Laura looked at her friend attentively. She was quite surprised at the change in Ann. Ann’s quiet good looks had bloomed into a kind of beauty. Laura Whitstable had seen that happen before, and she knew the cause. That radiance, that happy look, could have only one meaning: Ann was in love. How unfair it was, reflected Dame Laura, that women in love looked their best and men in love looked like depressed sheep.
‘What have you been doing with yourself lately, Ann?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Going about. Nothing much.’
‘Richard Cauldfield is a new friend, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. I’ve only known him about ten days. I met him at James Grant’s dinner.’
She told Dame Laura something about Richard, ending up by asking naïvely, ‘You do like him, don’t you?’
Laura, who had not yet made up her mind whether she liked Richard Cauldfield or not, was prompt to reply:
‘Yes, very much.’
‘I do feel, you know, that he’s had a sad life.’
Dame Laura had heard the statement made very often. She suppressed a smile and asked: ‘What news of Sarah?’
Ann’s face lit up.
‘Oh, Sarah’s been enjoying herself madly. They’ve had perfect snow, and nobody seems to have broken anything.’
Dame Laura said dryly that Edith would be disappointed. They both laughed.
‘This
