Children of no Man's Land by G.B. Stern — Read

I

Samson Phillips was first and foremost a man of tenacious disposition. He heard Antonia mention that Deb was to be found that Saturday afternoon with a certain person of the name of llorraine, and that she intended a visit to the same person, on her way home after the picture-show. Therefore, by doggedly attaching himself to Nell and her friend during the picture-show, as he was well able to do after Otto's admonition to conviviality; by dint of an afternoon's complete boredom and stiff discomfort; and by steadfast repetition of "Well-where do we go now? " at every projected flight on the part of Antonia and Nell, when circumstances offered a break in the concerted programme, as outside the Redburys front door, or after the complete and lingering tour of the Leicester Galleries: "No, I don't care much for this kind of picture. " Or after half an hour spent in some neighbouring and drearily respectable tea-rooms; in fact, by simple dint of "hanging on," Samson presently found himself being welcomed by La llorraine, after the manner of a Royal Mistress of the Robes receiving the Royal Master of the Staghounds.... She was in one of her "legitimate" moods; wit and not coarseness was the passport for innuendo. They had rented a rambling underground flat off Elgin Avenue, where their furniture had at last a chance to spread itself; the vast drawing-room, lit by candelabra night and day, was thick-carpeted and sparsely furnished by a Louis couch and chair, a piano, and a table that held some delicate simpering miniatures. Manon moved about the dim spaces, a solitary unchildlike little princess with wide skirts and golden hair that was brushed high off her forehead and piled into stiff curls.... Obviously, the more disreputable phase of peroxide, clothes-line, and variety entertainment, was for the moment in abeyance.