It was only yesterday
afternoon that Beverly-Jones found me standing here in
the gloom of some cedar-trees beside the edge of the pond
and took me back so quietly to the house that I realized
he thought I meant to drown myself. So I did.
I could have stood it better--my coming here, I mean
--if they hadn't come down to the station in a body to
meet me in one of those long vehicles with seats down
the sides: silly-looking men in coloured blazers and
girls with no hats, all making a hullabaloo of welcome.
"We are quite a small party," Mrs. Beverly-Jones had
written. Small! Great heavens, what would they call a
large one? And even those at the station turned out to
be only half of them. There were just as many more all
lined up on the piazza of the house as we drove up, all
waving a fool welcome with tennis rackets and golf clubs.
Small party, indeed! Why, after six days there are still
some of the idiots whose names I haven't got straight!
That fool with the fluffy moustache, which is he? And
that jackass that made the salad at the picnic yesterday,
is he the brother of the woman with the guitar, or who?
But what I mean is, there is something in that sort of
noisy welcome that puts me to the bad at the start.
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