Free The Conscience of the Rich by C. P. Snow

absolutely maddening,’ she broke out again, ‘this fluke happening just when Mr L was ready to accept it.’
    Charles was silent for a moment. Then he said: ‘I’m not certain that he was.’
    ‘You told me so,’ said Katherine. ‘But still – you’re going to have a foul time. I wish to God I could help.’
    She went on: ‘He thinks the world of Uncle Philip, of course. Did you notice that he pretended to have told him? He’d obviously just muttered “my son Charles is mumpish” and was hoping that nobody would notice that you never appeared in court–’
    ‘Is there anything I can do?’ said Francis. His voice was a little thick. In his embarrassment at dinner, he had been drinking more than the rest of us; now, when he wanted to be useful and protective, he looked as though the light was dazzling him.
    Charles shook his head and said no.
    ‘You’re sure?’ said Francis, trying to speak with his usual crispness. Again Charles said no.
    ‘In that case,’ said Francis, ‘it might be wiser if the rest of us left you to it.’
    ‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ said Charles. ‘I’d rather Mr L found you all here.’
    For a second it sounded as if he were trying to avoid a scene. Listening to his tone, I suddenly felt that that was the opposite of the truth.
    He went on speaking to Francis. Katherine smiled at them anxiously, then turned to me.
    ‘By the way, according to your theory, the mass of people at dinner must have sounded very forbidding,’ she said. ‘Did you find a few who made it tolerable? When you actually arrived?’
    The question was incomprehensible, and yet she was clearly expecting me to understand. ‘Your theory’: I could not imagine what she meant.
    ‘Don’t you remember,’ she said, ‘saying that to me the first time we met? When I was being shunted off to the Jewish dance. I won’t swear to the actual words, but I’m pretty certain they’re nearly right. I thought over them a good many times afterwards, you see. I wondered whether you meant to take me down a peg or two for being too superior.’
    It was the sort of attentive memory, the sort of extravagant thin-skinnedness, that I should have become accustomed to; but a new example still surprised me just as much.
    ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Katherine, ‘I decided that you probably didn’t mean that.’
    Then Mr March entered. He went straight to Charles, paying no attention to the rest of us: he stood in front of Charles’ chair.
    ‘Now you see what you’re responsible for,’ he said. Charles got up.
    ‘You know how sorry I am that you’re involved, Mr L,’ Charles said.
    ‘I haven’t got time to speculate whether you’re sorry or not. I’ve just been listening to my brothers telling me that you’re making a fool of yourself. As though I wasn’t perfectly aware of it already. I expressed exactly the same point of view myself but unfortunately I haven’t succeeded in making much impression on you.’
    ‘No one could have done more than you did.’
    ‘A great many people could have done enormously more. Do you think my father listened to Herbert when he got up to his monkey tricks and wanted to study music? An astonishingly bad musician he would have made if you can judge by his singing in the drawing-room when we were children. Hannah said that he was only asked to sing because he was the youngest child. Anyone else would have done enormously more. In any case, I never gave my permission as you appear to have assumed. You may have thought the matter was closed, but that doesn’t affect the issue.’
    ‘It’s no good reopening it, Mr L. I’m sorry.’
    ‘Certainly it’s some good reopening it. After tonight, I haven’t any option.’
    Charles suddenly broke out: ‘You admit that tonight is making the difference?’
    ‘I never allowed you to think that the matter was closed. But in addition to that, I don’t propose to ignore–’
    ‘The position is this: when we were left to ourselves,