THE ENGLISH GARDENS
241
door opening behind Meredith's back and Mary Jane come into
the room.
"Oh,". she gasped, staring at them, her anger lost in her
horror. "I just came ..." she faltered in childlike accents, "to
borrow one of your ..." With desperate fingers she plucked from
the nearest shelf
Romantic Reykjavik,
and made her escape
before either of them could speak. Returning to her room she
collected herself enough to decide she must go back to Venice, as
soon as possible. Feeling chaste as well as virtuous, she told herself
that true adventures, after all, were those of the mind.
Meanwhile, Meredith had started for the door, stopped,
turned, and, as he strode across the room, resolutely, was yelling,
"Out! Out!" He reached for Nicolas, perhaps to take him by the
ears.
"Hey, hey, easy! Hey!" Nicolas fell back on an elbow; his
other arm held out defensively. By this he was grasped and
brought to his feet so fast he tottered there like one of those
weighted toys. Next, shoulders gripped, he was hustled to the
window and thrust through onto the terrace, without even realiz–
ing how much he had helped by bending
his
knees. Outside, he
faced the lighted library window and, piece by piece, had
his
clothes flung at him. Meredith leaned out and in a lowered
voice declared, "And don't come creeping around here again,
creep." The bars were shut, the windows, too. Through these,
Meredith could be seen pacing around with his hands to his head.
Standing out there, a shiver took Nicolas, and then rage,
and then-revenge! He gathered wind, cupped his mouth,
shouted: "Kraut-lover! Phoney! No good verse-maker!"
He went on a little longer, improvising, until a light-con–
trolled
in
the Grafin's quarters-lit up the whole front of the
house, the terrace, Nicolas, and part of the lawn beyond. In it,
Nicolas posed, defiantly, confronting three elderly country ladies,
an ex-Wehrmacht general, a family of four Swiss, the patroness,
and five serving girls.
At last, he faced about and marched across the lawn into
