LIFE AND LETTERS
993
whatever I may have said, remember that your visit has been a most
delightful event in my life."
But he had made his decision too late. In the doorway stood
Miranda Searle, swaying slightly, her face flushed, her hand clutch–
ing the door lintel in an effort to steady herself.
"Still sharing?" she asked in a thick voice, then she added with
a coarse familiarity. "You'll have to stop bloody soon or we'll never
get to sleep." Her husband got up from his chair. "We're just com–
ing" he said quietly. Miranda Searle leant against the doorway and
laughed; points of light seemed to be dancing in her eyes as malice
gleamed forth. "Darling" she drawled in her huskiest tones "the 'we'
sounds faintly improper, or are we to carry the sharing principle to the
point of bed?"
Elspeth hoisted her great height from the chair and stood awk–
wardly regarding her hostess for a second. "That's a very cheap and
disgusting remark" she said. Henry Searle seemed to have lost all life,
he bent down and touched a crack in his patent leather slippers. But
the malicious gleam in Miranda's eyes faded, leaving them cold and
hard. "Washing dirty linen in public is disgusting" she said, and as
she spoke her mouth seemed to slip sideways. "Not that's there much
to share. You're welcome to it all. He's no great cop, you know." She
managed by the force of her voice to make the slang expression sound
like an obscenity. "I pumped one kid out of him, but it finished him
as a man."
Professor Searle seemed to come alive again, his hand went out
in protest; but his resurrection was too slow, before he could cross
the room Elspeth had sprung from her chair. Towering over the other
woman she slapped her deliberately across the face, then putting her
hands on her shoulders she began to shake her.
"You ought to be put away" she said. "Put away where you can
do no more harm."
Miranda Searle lurched to get free of the girl's grasp, her long
bony hands came up to tear at the girl's arms, but in moving she
caught her heel in the rose brocade skirt and slipped ridiculously to
the ground. The loss of dignity seemed to remove all her fury, she
sat in a limp heap, the tears streaming from her eyes.
"If
they'd left
me my boy, he wouldn't have let this happen to me," she went on
repe{lting. Her husband helped her to her feet and, taking her by
