376
PARTISAN REVIEW
Mrs. Sheehan peeped, "Oh my," and began blinking her eyes so
rapidly surely all the difficulty, and everything else as well, took wings
and £lapped off. Ursula Dolmon's face thickened and clenched to the
sourest of frowns. She nodded slowly and, leaning forward, closed in
for the kill. And Tina gave a little gasp, for she and I saw what the
ladies couldn't.
Behind them there appeared in the trees along the creek a dwarf–
though thicker. Rather, a fellow squashed into himself, with the
excesses bulging out everywhere, a very heavy dwarf, actually. But no–
he seemed a dwarf merely because he stood in the shadows of the trees.
As he came to the edge of the shade, Tina saw he was a regular-sized
fellow. No again! He was a
large
fellow! And wearing a tweed suit and
cap, with yellow gloves, and swinging a big shiny walking stick!
"But sir," Mrs. Sheehan said
to
me, "no one is coming. I mean...
You
are. I mean..."
"Fah!" Ursula Dolmon shook with wrath. " He's an imposter,
Clarinda. A fop interloper! A snake in the grass!" She glared at me.
"Tell us, my fine young fop, who are you if you're ·not who you're
supposed to be."
"I don't understand that," I said quietly. "Who am I supposed to
be?"
"Why, who you are, of course," Mrs. Sheehan said.
"Oh. You know who I am?"
"We thought we did," Mrs. Sheehan said, while Ursula Dolmon
grumbled, "Fah! Oh bloody fah!"
"And who might that be?" I said.
Mrs. Sheehan tried to speak but all her breath was gone. She sat
with her eyes closed and her mouth open.
And it was left to Ursula Dolmon to say: "Hugh Venolio."
It undulated across the terrace and rippled down the lawn, echoing
within itself as it does even when it is whispered, causing those who
hear, no matter how often they have heard it before, to repeat it to
themselves, as in fact the four of us were doing at that moment,
murmuring
Venolio, Venolio .
..
Though Tina uttered it louder than the rest of us. And with great
urgency as her eyes went like darts to the face of the figure who upon
hearing the purple smoke of that name stepped into the sunlight.
Tina's next sound, another little gasp, had less delight than her first.
And that was followed by as sincere a groan as ever was heard.
Suddenly banging both plastic "platforms" on the terrace and leaning
forward, rattling her beehive, Tina shot forth a piping, inchoate
utterance, pathetic, desperate, and fierce. The ladies, densely preoccu-
