The Phaedrus is very difficult.  And so, when at length one reads straight ahead, falling into step, marching on, becoming (so it seems) momentarily part of this rolling, imperturbable energy, which has driven darkness before it since Plato walked the Acropolis, it is impossible to see to the fire.

The dialogue draws to its close.  Plato’s argument is done.  Plato’s argument is stowed away in Jacob’s mind, and for five minutes Jacob’s mind continues alone, onwards, into the darkness.  Then, getting up, he parted the curtains, and saw, with astonishing clearness, how the Springetts opposite had gone to bed; how it rained; how the Jews and the foreign woman, at the end of the street, stood by the pillar-box, arguing.

Every time the door opened and fresh people came in, those already in the room shifted slightly; those who were standing looked over their shoulders; those who were sitting stopped in the middle of sentences.  What with the light, the wine, the strumming of a guitar, something exciting happened each time the door opened.  Who was coming in?

“That’s Gibson.”

“The painter?”

“But go on with what you were saying.”

They were saying something that was far, far too intimate to be said outright.  But the noise of the voices served like a clapper in little Mrs. Withers’s mind, scaring into the air blocks of small birds, and then they’d settle, and then she’d feel afraid, put one hand to her hair, bind both round her knees, and look up at Oliver Skelton nervously, and say: 

“Promise, promise, you’ll tell no one.” ... so considerate he was, so tender.  It was her husband’s character that she discussed.  He was cold, she said.

Down upon them came the splendid Magdalen, brown, warm, voluminous, scarcely brushing the grass with her sandalled feet.  Her hair flew; pins seemed scarcely to attach the flying silks.  An actress of course, a line of light perpetually beneath her.  It was only “My dear” that she said, but her voice went jodelling between Alpine passes.  And down she tumbled on the floor, and sang, since there was nothing to be said, round ah’s and oh’s.  Mangin, the poet, coming up to her, stood looking down at her, drawing at his pipe.  The dancing began.

Grey-haired Mrs. Keymer asked Dick Graves to tell her who Mangin was, and said that she had seen too much of this sort of thing in Paris (Magdalen had got upon his knees; now his pipe was in her mouth) to be shocked.  “Who is that?” she said, staying her glasses when they came to Jacob, for indeed he looked quiet, not indifferent, but like some one on a beach, watching.

“Oh, my dear, let me lean on you,” gasped Helen Askew, hopping on one foot, for the silver cord round her ankle had worked loose.  Mrs. Keymer turned and looked at the picture on the wall.

“Look at Jacob,” said Helen (they were binding his eyes for some game).