Caught a bad cold at Rosedale from walking in the wet.
Cold worse. Saw the doctor, who said I must go to bed and not think of going to the office.
Stayed in bed all day and read a book called _Sir Archibald Malmaison_, by Julian Hawthorne.
Went down to Staines to the Housmans'. Found Lady Jarvis, A. and Mrs Fairburn. At dinner Mrs Fairburn talked of the Shamier divorce. Mrs Housman said she admired people who behaved like that, and she thought it far better than a hidden liaison. Mrs Fairburn agreed, and said there was nothing she despised so much as dishonesty and concealment.
It again rained all Sunday, so we were unable to go on the river. It cleared up in the evening. Housman took Mrs Fairburn out in a punt.
Housman told us he had taken for the summer the same house they had last year at Carbis Bay. He invited A. to come there and to stay as long as he liked. A. said he would be yachting on the west coast this summer and he would certainly pay them a visit. Housman said Lady Jarvis must come, and he is going to ask Cunninghame. Mrs Fairburn said it was a pity she would not be able to come, but she always spent August and September in France.
I had luncheon with Cunninghame at his Club. He said that A. does not seem quite so depressed as usual.
A. is giving a dinner to some French _députés_ at his Club. Cunninghame and I have both been invited.
Dined at the Club with Solway. Went to the Opera afterwards, for which Solway had been given two places. Debussy's _Pelléas et Mélisande_. We both enjoyed it.
Dined with Aunt Ruth. I had a long talk with her after dinner. She asked after Riley, whom she knows well. "I hear," she said, "he has become a Roman Catholic; of course he will always have a _parti-pris_ now. I wonder if he has realised that." Uncle Arthur joined in the conversation and thought we were talking of someone else, but of whom I have no idea, as he said it all came from not going to school. Riley has been to three schools, besides Oxford, Heidelberg and Berlin universities, and has taken his degree in French law. He, Riley, is staying with me to-morrow night.
I told Riley that I had heard a lady discussing his conversion lately, and that she had wondered whether he realised that he would have a _parti-pris_ in future. Riley said: "I rather hope I shall. Do you really think one becomes a Catholic to drift like a sponge on a sea of indecision, or to be like an Æolian harp? Don't you yourself think," he said, "that _parti-pris_ is rather a mild term for such a tremendous decision, such a _venture_? Would your friend think _parti-pris_ the right expression to use of a man who nailed his colours to the mast during a sea-battle? It is a good example of _miosis_." I asked him what _miosis_ meant. He said that if I wanted another example it would be miosis to say that the French Revolution put Marie Antoinette to considerable inconvenience. Besides which, it was putting the cart before the horse to say you would be likely to have a _parti-pris,_ when by the act of becoming a Catholic you had proclaimed the greatest of all possible _parti-pris_. It was like saying to a man who had enlisted in the Army: "You will probably become very pro-British." "You won't," he said, "think things out." I said that it was not I who had made the comment, but my aunt, Lady Mellor.