Stephen McKenna

“ After dinner we had music. . .
I don’t know what your experience has been, but I find it hard to remain patient with the whole world of people who delight in calling themselves “artists”. (If English has any meaning, an artist is a person who paints, not a fiddler or a poet or an actor.) So much fuss has been made of them that their heads have really been turned. Before I had quite decided what music to have, I heard a young man playing at Connie Maitland’s. ”

“ There was an epidemic of cabinet rank; and, if one had business in Whitehall, one met the oddest people—never the same two days running. Connie Maitland thoroughly enjoyed herself, I always felt; so many new people to know before any one else. (I am not ashamed to confess that it is not my ambition simply to know new people.) When I returned from Menton, I did drop a little hint and suggest that, as the war was now over, she ought to revise some of her war friendships. ”

“ I know that with some of the really estimable women who sat on committees with me. . . “Is it true kindness?,” I asked myself. “They lead their lives, you lead yours; the war brought you together, but you’ve nothing else in common. ”

“ And he was master of the ceremonies, cook, butler, carriage-finder. The older generation, too, has been so much thrust into the background that we find it refreshing when a young man shews a little politeness and consideration. As soon as supper was ready—he had prepared it with his own hands—, Colonel Butler asked if he might take me down. Arthur was with me and he at once intervened.
“No, no,” he said. “You’re a dancing man. Go off and find Phyllida. You’ll spoil her evening if you don’t ask her to dance.” ”

“ There is a curious convention that there is something funny about a man of Arthur’s age and position falling under the spell of a little chorus-girl; it is less funny when you have to fight for your life to preserve your husband and the father of your child. Some form of madness that overtakes men. ”

“ Some people are quite wonderfully able to give you that sense of well-being. I presented Will. She said:
“But you’re not old enough to have a grown-up son!”
“I am old enough to be proud of it, ma’am,” I said.
I don’t think I am envious; but, when I saw the success of my little party, when I looked at Brackenbury, who has the money and does nothing with it, and at Ruth, who couldn’t do anything with it if she wanted to . . . just an over-grown school-girl. . . When I thought of Spenworth and the opportunities at Cheniston, I felt it was a little hard. . . ”

“ I mean, one cannot be expected to identify eighty or a hundred people all at once; the princess was obviously my first concern, and, when this young fellow ceased playing and I stood up, naturally I imagined that they would all come forward. ”

“ One thing I noticed on returning to England was the extraordinary mixture of people that one met everywhere. For this, though I am personally fond of her, I blame Connie Maitland more than any dozen other women. Not being a persona grata in certain circles to which she would dearly like to have the entrée, she seems to cultivate numbers for their own sake. When the princess . ”

“ He has a gift of silver speech; the superior young man at the piano, who always left all arrangements of terms to his agent, if you please, sat with a bottle of champagne and a plate of sandwiches playing till four o’clock. ”