Guilt? None. A cuckolder’s triumph? Not specially, no. Still rather miffed at Ayrs, if anything. The other evening, the Dhondts came to dinner and Mrs. D. asked for some piano music to help the food go down, so I played that “Angel of Mons” piece I wrote on holiday with you in the Scilly Isles two summers ago, though disclaimed its authorship by saying “a friend” had composed it. I’ve been rewriting it. It’s better and more fluid and subtle than those sherbety Schubertian pastiches V.A. spewed out in his twenties. J. and the Dhondts loved it so much they insisted on an encore. Was only six bars in when V.A. exercised a hitherto unknown veto. “I’d advise your friend to master the Ancients before he frolics with the Moderns.” Sounds like innocuous enough advice? However, he pronounced friend
