GAY LIFE. E. M. Delafield

words of thankfulness formed themselves on his lips—he was praying half aloud.

      Denis's belief in a personal God had grown up with him. Often and often it had been his only defence against despair, and self-condemnation, and the overwhelming inward certainty of his own inability ever to rise above circumstances. He clung ardently to his conviction that God understood him, and would help him when things became unendurable, and not allow him to remain for ever unfriended, and lonely, and obscure. This faith in God was on a par with Denis's secret dramatisation of himself as a reincarnated soul, sent to help others less evolved. He had neither the mentality nor the temperament that analyses before accepting, and his passionate adherence to a God who cared profoundly and individually for Denis Hannaford Waller was in proportion to his supreme need of reassurance, his deadly and corroding fear of being somehow inferior to the rest of humanity.

      It was still natural to Denis, as natural as it had been in childhood, to translate his emotions into terms of prayer. He knelt for a long time by the side of the bed, unconscious of the slightly absurd conjunction of this traditional attitude of supplication with his neat, blue-striped pyjama suit, his carefully brushed little narrow head clasped in his long, skinny fingers, and the upturned soles of his slipperless feet.

      When at last he climbed into bed, it was heaven to lie in the stillness, the window wide open to the breathless, starlit night, and relive, over and over again, every instant of the evening spent with Chrissie Challoner. He could remember everything that she had said, and that he had answered, and every intonation of her softly spoken phrases. He could feel again the close, steady pressure of her small hand as they said good-night.

      He did not allow himself fully to realise that he had fallen violently in love. He thought of the strong compulsion that had drawn Chrissie and himself towards one another as an irresistible spiritual affinity, a mutual recognition. And indeed it was true that physical desire, in Denis, was almost as undeveloped as in a young child, deeply inhibited as he was by obscure terrors, sham idealism, and the intense shyness of the eternally self-conscious. His day-dreams were still those of an unawakened adolescent.

      Far too profoundly excited to sleep, he lay with open eyes until dawn flooded the sky with an exquisite, clear, pale green.

      Denis turned over, placing one hand beneath his cheek like a child, and his eyelids closed. Imperceptibly he drifted, on a tide of radiant happiness, into sleep.

      (4)

      The rickety gate of the shaky little lift clanged on a shrill, uncertain note as Coral Romayne stepped out of it.

      It clanged again as Angie Moon slammed it, and pressed the button that should take her up a floor higher.

      Coral, yawning, and unfastening hooks with one hand, hung for a moment over the banisters. She could see Buckland and young Moon coming up the stairs, not talking, Hilary walking ahead.

      "Good-night," she called.

      They looked up.

      "Good-night," said Hilary. He sounded rather surly.

      Coral trailed very slowly along the passage towards the door of her own room at the far end of it. She heard Hilary's steps, on the marble, going up higher. Then Buckland's heavy tread, pausing on the top step. She did not turn round.

      In another moment, she heard him following her down the long passage. Timing herself carefully, she allowed him to catch up with her just as she reached the bedroom door.

      "Got all you want?" he asked casually.

      "I expect so. Don't wait for me to-morrow morning. I shall have breakfast up here."

      "All right."

      She had opened her door, and he was half in and half out of the room.

      "That yellow thing you've got on looks marvellous. It suits you too terribly well."

      He fingered the filmy stuff that hung at her breast.

      "Shut up, Buck—you'll wake the hotel, and make a scandal. Good-night."

      "Good-night—Coral."

      He took hold of her by the shoulders.

      "What's up?"

      "Nothing. Go to bed."

      "Aren't you going to say good-night to me?"

      "How much would you mind if I didn't?"

      "A lot more than you think."

      "Liar!"

      Coral freed herself, and pushed him away with both hands. He resisted, and for a moment they swayed together in a laughing struggle. Then Coral abruptly stood still and said: "Hark! What was that?"

      Somewhere a door had shut softly.

      "I didn't hear anything," said Buckland, without much conviction.

      "I did. Good-night."

      She shut her door in his face, and after a second's hesitation he turned away and went upstairs.

      (5)

      Patrick Romayne stood still, pressed closely against the door that he had so cautiously and quickly shut.

      He heard Buckland's footsteps recede along the passage and die away in the distance. He could also hear his mother moving things about in the room next door. Once she dropped something, and he was almost sure that he caught the sound of a brief ejaculation. But perhaps that was imagination, because he knew that she always did swear, briefly and without real anger, whenever she dropped things.

      There was a communicating door between the rooms, but she wouldn't open it. Probably she thought he'd gone to sleep long ago, and of course he was much too old now for her to come in and look at him asleep, as she'd sometimes done when he was little.

      Most likely she wouldn't even notice that there was a light under his door, if he were to switch it on and read for a bit.

      He fixed his mind on the detective story in the Tauchnitz volume lent him by Olwen Morgan.

      It was a good yarn.

      Patrick got into bed and read steadily, trying hard to keep his mind on the story.