Now Rankin was a little afraid of the elegant lady his wife.  He had had to apologise to her many times for the curious people he brought to the house, and he was anxious that Rickman should make a good impression.  He was also hungry, as hungry as a man can be who has three square meals every day of his life.  Therefore he was annoyed with Rickman for being late.

But his annoyance vanished at the first sight of him.  His handshake was significant of atonement and immutable affection.  He introduced him almost fearlessly to his wife.  He had been at some pains to impress upon her that she was about to entertain a much greater man than her husband, and that it would be very charming of her if she behaved accordingly.  At this she pouted prettily, as became a bride, and he pointed out that as Keith Rickman was a poet his greatness was incommensurable with that of her husband, it left him undisturbed upon his eminence as the supreme master of prose.  So that Mrs. Rankin smiled dimly and deferentially as an elegant hostess must smile upon a poet who has kept her waiting.  There were two other ladies there (Rankin’s mother and sister from the provinces); their greeting conveyed a rustling and excited consciousness of the guest’s distinction.

As Rankin’s family retreated, Maddox heaved himself forward and grasped Rickman’s hand without a word.

Rickman had no very clear idea of what happened in the brief pause before dinner.  His first sensation was one of confused beatitude and warmth, of being received into an enfolding atmosphere of friendliness.  He was sure it was friendliness that made Maddox pluck him by the arm and draw him down beside him on the sofa; and he was too tired to wonder why Maddy should think it necessary to whisper into his collar, “Steady, you’ll be all right if you sit still, old man.”  The strange voices of the women confused him further, and standing made him giddy:  he was glad to sit still in his corner obliterated by Maddy’s colossal shoulders.  It was friendliness, he knew, that made Rankin dispense with ceremony and pilot him through those never-ending spaces to the dining-room.  And it must have been an exaggeration of the same feeling that made him (regardless of his wife’s uplifted eyebrows) insist on placing the guest of the evening between Maddox and himself.  It was later on, about the time when the wine went round, that Rickman became aware of a change, of a subtle undefined hostility in the air.  He wondered whether the Rankins were annoyed with him because of his inability to take a brilliant part in the conversation or to finish any one thing that he took upon his plate.  But for the life of him he couldn’t help it.  He was too tired to talk, and he had reached that stage of hunger when the desire to eat no longer brought with it the power of eating, when the masterpieces of Rankin’s chef excited only terror and repugnance.  He ate sparingly as starving men must eat, and he drank more sparingly than he ate; for he feared the probable effect of unwonted stimulants.  So that his glass appeared ever to be full.