A man who don’t want lovers. He wants enemy to take him cruelly and shake the fairy out of him. Here the extract :

"I don't want lovers. I want an enemy to take me cruelly and shake the fairy out of me — and leave me a man — and leave me sad but wise, like a man."

Lena would not admit that she was surprised and puzzled, so she said nothing. She scarcely ever replied, which saved her a great deal of trouble and humiliation. Surprise did not show in her face, which was set in a mould of sadness and hostility.

"You could teach me wisdom," said Clifford. "You may not be at home in the world, but you don't look outside it. You are an enemy to fairies. I wish I could lie in your arms and so learn wisdom."

Lena's heart beat more quickly. But she said nothing at all.

"Oh hell," said Clifford. "I forgot. Two Chinese are having tea with us. I wish Daley wasn't so damn kind."

Daley is his wife. You can now imagine this story…

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Sommaire

Introduction

Come Along, Lena

Two Chinese Having Tea

Daley Cotton

Old Mrs. Cotton

The Victrola

The Dog

Lion and Daley

Lena and Lion

Whole House Spotted with C.C.C.s

Husbands

Her dog Josephine

The new Daley

Daley, Lena and the doctor

Lena was a Sick Woman

Mr Diamond, a gentleman

Lena’s Husband

Old Mrs. Cotton, an insular

Milady and Edna

We do not Know the Hearts of Foreigners

Her Dogs

His Passion for Daley

He Committed Suicide

Is she got Pluck ?

Lena

No Husband and No Music

A Moon of her Childhood

Conclusion

The Dog

A Coolie

It had begun to rain as Lena, Daley and Clifford walked behind a coolie with a lantern towards the consul's compound. Gigantic shadows of the coolie's hurrying legs, so close to the lantern, snapped like great scissors along the wet whitewashed wall. Across the glow immediately around the lantern the rain seemed to fall slowly like snow. There was a restless murmuring of rain among the eucalyptus trees.

Mr. Diamond, the consul, always kind, had had his piano carried into the shed. Rows of assorted chairs looked rather hopelessly at the piano and listened to the high smooth stir of the rain outside. Daley's three dogs, their fur pommaded by the rain, bustled in and smelt the piano. One by one they set their seal of approval upon the piano in their own frank but rather regrettable way. Every one pretended not to notice this.

"You brave people. You brave people," said Mr. Diamond, coming forward to take Daley's hand and to hang up her wet coat. "Heaven doesn't seem to have blessed our venture, but our Daley can always be trusted to defy Heaven."

Mr. Diamond was always rather sprightly, but tonight the sprightliness seemed to have gone deeper than usual and he was sprightly all through. The chair from which he had risen as Daley came in was cheek by jowl with the chair on which the orange-haired Milady still sat. Edna was sorting music soberly at a little distance.

"Well Lena, we're all in clover!" shouted Milady. "You're not the only one, you needn't think. Mr. Diamond's stood me an' Edna a terrific feed and fizz to beat the band."

She leaned over the arm of her chair and shook her finger roguishly at Mr. Diamond. Her fat knees were wide apart in her tight sky-blue satin skirt; her manner of brawling triumph spoke rather pathetically of anxieties for the moment forgotten.

Mr. Diamond looked pleased but at the same time gentlemanly.

"There is something of the knight-errant in me," he said. "I couldn't think of leaving two fair ladies at the mercy of whatever dinner the doctor's poor old cook might provide. And again, apart from all unselfish considerations, I thought we should all prefer music that wasn't inspired by indigestion."

"Aren't you a scream," said Milady. And in the silence that followed her loud giggle, Clifford could be clearly heard at the door saying to Lena, "I shall watch your face the whole time."

"Just listen to Clifford!" exclaimed Daley. "I warn everybody that he's been married seven years. You can see that for yourselves by the fact that he doesn't offer to help the lady off with her wet coat."

"The Apache method," murmured Mr. Diamond. Every one was beginning to get a little tired of trying to be amusing when Lion came in and the whole effort had to be renewed.

"Rain, rain, rain," said Lion. He and Mr. Diamond disliked each other and always met in an explosion of heartiness.

"Rain, rain, rain and yet more rain," echoed Mr. Diamond helpfully. "I foresee a flood and these ladies obliged to stay with us Noahs in the Ark. We shall have music every night."

"And fizz," suggested Milady.

"I've only got one case," said Mr. Diamond. "Noah, I suppose, had at least a pair. But such as it is, it is yours. A poor thing but your own."

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