And if she shrugged her shoulders at Aida for being too old, Christine did the same at Alice for being too young.  Alice was truly a girl—­probably not more than seventeen.  Her pert, pretty, infantile face was an outrage against the code.  She was a mere amateur, with everything 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 at the Reynolds Galleries about the past and the possibilities of the future.  The Major was very benevolently intoxicated, and at short intervals he raised his glass to G.J., who did not once fail to respond with an affectionate smile which Christine had never before seen on G.J.’s face.