Outbreak of Love by Martin Boyd Page A

honour, which only filled her with resentment that she had not been invited. She was sure that Wolfie could, if he wanted to, introduce her into circles which she felt that her money and her name entitled her to enter. He was treating her as if she were a street woman, whereas she had not “gone with” anybody since she had met him, and so considered herself highly respectable, especially as she never took money from gentlemen, but was more apt to bestow it. A woman with a flat on the same floor, with whom she sometimes came up in the lift, had been amused and attracted by her, and a few days after Wolfie’s visit, Mrs Montaubyn confided to her that she wanted to “get into society” but did not know how to set about it.
    â€œOh, you want to write your name at Government House,” said the woman, partly to avoid introducing Mrs Montaubyn to her own friends, and she explained how and where to do this.
    Diana was not very hurt that Wolfie again went out for the evening and left her alone. She was expecting Russell to ring up and ask her to meet him at the tea-room. She was sure that a friendship would develop between them but had no clear idea of what its nature was to be. Certainly she had no idea of being unfaithful to Wolfie. Her upbringing was such that it would appear ridiculous to her that a woman already a grandmother, though barely forty years of age, should have an emotional relationship with a man not her husband.
    All the same she did not see why she should not, now that the spade-work of her duty was nearly finished with the children grown up and going their own ways, enjoy some refreshment of her mind in new friendships. She had not before considered such a possibility, as she had not seen the direction from which it could come. But now she had met Russell.
    She had been brought up amongst people whose chief pleasure had been in the use of their minds, in a perpetual flicker of wit, and in the consideration, though not at a deep level, of ideas. They were prepared to discuss intelligently, with what capacity they had, any idea that was presented to them. Wolfie hated to use his mind. It was painful and perhaps impossible for him to do so, except in transferring his emotions on to musical scores. He lived instinctively and he detested logic. When Diana used it to try and induce him to behave with responsibility he told her she was not womanly. At first, after the excessive cerebration of her relatives, she found him restful.
    Now she longed for a little quick intelligence, and she believed that Russell could provide the exact variety she needed. At the party she felt she could have gone on talking to him for hours, and she wanted to meet him again soon, while that impulse was at its height. She expected him to ring up the next day, but she did not hear from him till the middle of the following week, and then not by telephone but by post. His letter came in the afternoon, at the same time that Mrs Montaubyn, with a toss of her head and a suspicious glance at the sentry, was entering the lodge in St Kilda Road to write her name in the Governor-General’s book.
    Diana felt nervous as she opened the letter. She knew it was from Russell, though she had not seen his handwriting, as far as she could remember, until now. He wrote formally inviting her and Wolfie to luncheon at Menzies on Friday. He apologized for the short notice, and began: “Dear Mrs von Flugel”.
    Diana laughed, but she felt flat. She sat holding the letter and asking herself what she had expected. Had she expected that he would call her Diana? She wondered if he were afraid of her. Perhaps she should not have suggested their meeting alone in the tea-room. Then she felt impatient with his excessive formality and decided that she would not go. She went out so little that the party had gone to her head. He lived in that kind of atmosphere and probably talked to most women as he talked to her.
    â€œI’ve nearly made