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To crown this degrading scene, champagne was, or had been, everywhere. Two glasses lay broken on the floor, and where each had fallen a patch of carpet was stained to a darker red. My wife's glass had fallen on the table to drench the cloth. Two bathroom tumblers stood on the mantelpiece: one was half full of the wine, and cigarette-ends were fouling the other's dregs. Two bottles stood in a corner close to the door, and a third lolled in an ice-pail a foot away: a fourth bottle lay on its side between Berry's feet.

All this I saw and considered as though I had stumbled upon some battlefield. I was stupefied, shocked and dismayed. I found the time out of joint and deplored the snares and temptations of Vanity Fair. I felt much more than uneasy and I simply loathed three flies which were ceaselessly circling and darting beneath the red silk basin which hid the electric light. And that was as far as I could get. Reason why I could not. My head...

Without thinking, I moved my eyes, and again that skewer of agony seared my brain.