What, in God’s name, are you going to do with me if I get jealous and suspicious? Or I with you, if it happens that way? I ask this in damn sober earnest, old girl. I’ve got the thing right under my eyes here, and I know perfectly well that no agreement and no promise made before marriage will stand up for a single moment if either of us gets that ugly bug into the blood.

You remember⁠—months ago⁠—I passed on a cheerful little matrimonial dialogue that took place by the umbrella-stand. Tonight we had the pleasure of hearing the thing carried on to the next stage.

Harrison had the brilliant idea of inviting Lathom and me to dinner to taste his special way of frying chicken. Well, there we all were⁠—Miss Milsom frightfully kittenish in a garment she had embroidered herself with Persian arabesques. (“I don’t know what they mean, you know, Mr. Munting. Probably something frightfully improper! I copied them off a rug.”) Harrison who allows nobody to penetrate into “his” kitchen when he’s working out a masterpiece, was frying away amid a powerful odour of garlic. No Mrs. Harrison! We furiously make conversation⁠—enter H.⁠—gives a black look round, and disappears again. I count the things on the mantelpiece⁠—two brass candlesticks, brass doorknocker representing the Lincoln imp⁠—two imitation brass mulling-cones⁠—ill-balanced pottery nude⁠—quaint clock and pair of Liberty nondescripts. Front door goes. Kitchen door in the distance heard to burst open. “Well, where have you been?” Awful realisation creeps over us all that the sitting-room door has been left open. I say hurriedly: “Have you read the new Michael Arlen, Miss Milsom?” We are all aware that a prolonged cross-examination is proceeding. Lathom fidgets. Voice rises to appalling distinctness: “Don’t talk nonsense! How long were you at the hairdresser’s?⁠—Well, what were you doing?⁠—Yes, but what kept you?⁠—Yes, of course, you met somebody. You seem to be meeting a lot of people lately!⁠—I don’t care who it ‘only’ was⁠—one of the men from the office, I suppose⁠—Carrie Mortimer? nonsense!⁠—I shall not be quiet⁠—I shall talk as loudly as I like⁠—Did you or did you not remember⁠—?” Here I grow desperate and turn on the gramophone. In comes Harrison, putting a good face on it. “Here’s the wife, late as usual!” We sit down to dinner in embarrassed silence. I murmur eulogies on the chicken. “Overcooked,” says Harrison, shovelling it all aside and savagely picking at the vegetables. After this, everybody is afraid to eat it, for fear of not seeming to know good food from bad. “It seems delicious to me, Mr. Harrison,” says Miss Milsom, profiting nothing from long experience. “Oh,” says Harrison, sourly, “you women don’t care what you eat. It’s overdone, isn’t it, Lathom?” Lathom, quite helpless with rage, says in a strangulated voice, that he thinks it’s just right. “Well, you’re not eating it,” says Harrison, gloomily triumphant. By this time everybody’s appetite is taken thoroughly away. There is nothing on earth the matter with the chicken, but we all sit staring at it as though it was a Harpagus-feast of boiled baby.

Well, I’ll spare you the rest of the nightmare. The point is that this time, Mrs. Harrison didn’t come in bubblingly eager to say where she had been and what she had been doing⁠—and that next time the alibi will hold water⁠—and then Harrison will start saying that you can’t trust women, and will very likely be perfectly justified.

Bungie⁠—I see how these things happen, but how does one insure against them? What security have we that we⁠—you and I, with all our talk of freedom and frankness⁠—shall not come to this?

Love makes no difference. Harrison would cheerfully die for his wife⁠—but I can’t imagine anything more offensive than dying for a person after you’ve been rude to them. It’s taking a mean advantage. And what’s the good of it all to him, if he loves her so much that everything she says gets on his nerves? I like Harrison⁠—I think he’s worth a hundred of her⁠—and yet, every time there’s a row, she ingeniously manages somehow to make him appear to be in the wrong. She is completely selfish, but she takes the centre of the stage so convincingly that the whole scene is engineered to give her the limelight for her attitudes.

This house is becoming a nightmare; I shall have to chuck it, but I must stay on till Easter, because the rent is paid up to the quarter and I can’t afford to lead a double life and Lathom can’t manage more than his own share. Hell!

I to Hercules comes out next month. I hope old Merritt won’t be let down over it. He continues to be enthusiastic. Senile decay, I should think. Well, we’ll hope for the best. If my Press is as good as yours I shan’t complain, my child.