Love in Our Time Read Online Free Page A

you to get to know them.”
    â€œYou want me to get to know Tony?” Alice repeated.
    â€œYes, why not? Tony’s all right, isn’t he?”
    â€œI suppose so.”
    â€œWell, what’s wrong with him?”
    â€œOh, nothing. Nothing at all. Only I didn’t happen to know that he was a friend of yours.”
    Gerald crossed over and put his arm round her.
    â€œDon’t let Tony get you down,” he said. “There are plenty of others coming.”
    â€œYes, I know there are. You told me.”
    â€œWell, don’t you want them? It’s your party.”
    â€œIf I wanted to give a party,” Alice said quietly, “I should “ask some of my own friends.”
    So that was it! She was hurt because he hadn’t invited any of her friends.
    â€œWell, why not ask them now?” he said. “There’s plenty of time.” Then he remembered the cost, and added cautiously: “Ask some of them, at any rate. We can’t get too many people in here.”
    But Alice shook her head.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” she assured him. “You’ve got enough as it is.” She got up and went towards the door. “We might as well go into the dining-room,” she said. “I had everything ready when you came in.”
    The dining-room was not a success. Even in summer, it chilled. They had told themselves, at first, it would look better when it was finished. But they admitted now that they had been wrong. There was too much wood in it already—too much solid, expressionless, un-exhilarating wood. It had been Gerald’s idea to keep the furnishing in period; and it was a Refectory Suite that they had bought. It comprised a massive, trestle dining-table with synthetic marks of age cunningly gouged out of it; an imitation linen-fold sideboard, with a built-in knife-tray, similarly scored; and six medieval-lookingchairs. The effect at first sight was overpowering: it was like a little historical tableau from Chartres or Nantes.
    It was only afterwards that the concealed screw holes became apparent and the trade-mark of the patented leather substitute on the chairs showed through. Then the whole suite looked a degree less than genuine. Examined closely it had the air of something primitive and hasty; something that might have been hacked out and knocked together by a romantic and historically-minded schoolboy. Even the pictures round the walls—reproductions of Franz Hals’s “Laughing Cavalier” and Vermeer’s “Head of a Girl,” that actually showed the brush marks—did nothing to mitigate the gloom.
    They had been eating in silence for some time—it was a cold meal with a formidable, china wedding present full of salad on the table—when Alice spoke.
    â€œThere’s Willie,” she said suddenly. “We must have Willie.”
    At the name of Willie, Gerald put down his knife and fork. If there was one man more than another that he felt they could usefully drop it was Willie Marsh. No doubt he was genuine and warm hearted enough; and he and Alice had played together as children. But he was really unthinkable; there was something about him that was like a plump dummy out of a second-rate tailor’s. Even the way he did his hair was wrong. It was curly hair and he left it to grow into a high, fluffy peak in front. In the result, it gave him a bantam-cock air of jauntiness. The trouble about him was that he had no feeling at all about keeping up appearances: in summer he even used to walk round to tennis with his shoes strung round his racket. Every time Gerald looked at him hewondered why no one had ever explained things to him. With that presence he was condemned to the least of clerkships all his life. The wheels of the City were greased with the blood of impossible, unpromotable Willies.
    â€œWhat do you want to invite Willie for?” he asked.
    â€œI like Willie.”
    â€œYes, I know,