Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made available by the Internet Archive - Cornell University)
_Friday, December_ 18_th_, 1908. _Gray's Inn_.
I went to the station this morning to see the Housmans off. They are leaving for Egypt and intend to stay there a month or perhaps two months. They are stopping a few days at Paris on the way.
My Christmas holidays begin. I am spending Christmas with Uncle Arthur and Aunt Ruth. I have to be back at the office on the first of January.
_Thursday, January_ 1_st_, 1909. _Gray's Inn_.
Received a post-card from Mrs Housman, from Cairo.
Received a letter from Mrs Housman. They are returning to London.
The Housmans return to-morrow. They have been away one month and twenty-one days.
Went to meet the Housmans at the station. They are going straight into their new house at Campden Hill and are giving a house-warming dinner next Monday, to which I have been invited.
Lord Ayton has been made Parliamentary Under-Secretary. I do not know him but I remain in the office. He is taking me on.
The Housmans had their house-warming in their new house at Campden Hill. I was the first to arrive.
On one of the walls in the drawing-room there is the large portrait of Mrs Housman by Walter Bell, which I had never seen since it was exhibited in the New Gallery ten years ago. It was always being lent for exhibitions when I went to the old house in Inverness Terrace. While I was looking at this picture Housman joined me and apologised for being late. He said the portrait of Mrs Housman was Bell's _chef-d'oeuvre_. He liked it _now._ Then he said: "We are having some music to-night. Solway is dining with us and will play afterwards. He plays for nothing here, an old friend; you know him? Miss Singer is coming too. You know her? She writes. I don't read her."
At that moment Mrs Housman came in and almost immediately Mr and Mrs Carrington-Smith were announced. Mr Carrington-Smith is Housman's partner, an expert in deep-breathing besides being rich. Mrs Carrington-Smith had lately arrived from Munich. The other guests were--Miss Housman (Housman's sister), Lady Jarvis, Miss Singer, whom I was to take in to dinner, a city friend of Mr Housman's, Mr James Randall, a little man with a silk waistcoat, and, the last to arrive, Solway. I sat on Mrs Housman's left, next to Miss Singer. Carrington-Smith sat on Mrs Housmans right; Housman sat at the head of the table, between Mrs Carrington-Smith and Lady Jarvis. Miss Singer talked to me earnestly at first. She is writing on the Italian Renaissance. I told her I was ignorant of the subject, upon which her earnestness subsided, and she smiled. Then we talked of music, where I felt more at home. She had been to all Solway's concerts. She is not a Wagnerite. Just as we were beginning to get on smoothly there was a shuffle in the conversation and Mrs Housman turned to me.