Helped thus from the flank, Ramsey enjoyed a necessary dominance over his wife. Then autumn turned his park sere in its imported varieties and cast a strong frost for those stoic native trees. Autumn brought, too, a postcard from Los Angeles. It read, “I have considered for some time whether I should write to you. This souvenir of a far city is not necessarily a token of regard, neither of hostility. I simply don’t know. But one day I’d like you to try to explain what it was all about. Yours, David Hammond.” Late in April the poet came again to town and visited Ramsey’s office. He came spruce, and Barbara said he was perfumed, which for some reason alienated her finally from his verse. But he was, of course, a man in love and silly with toiletries. He and Ramsey strolled down to the staff dining-room. In the chilly westerlies Alec too received the little man’s nuptial savour. Which reminded him.… “Weren’t you and Mrs Turner to be married this month?” “We were to have been.”
