ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, GAY Margesson visited Colville in London. They saw the Strauss operetta Die Fledermaus, performed in English. Most of the audience loved the humor; Colville and Gay did not, and left in the middle of the third act. “In the intervals,” he wrote in his diary, “Gay insisted on talking politics, about which she is as ignorant as she is prejudiced, and indulging in recriminations of Chamberlain and his Government. For the first time since I have known her I found her definitely tedious and puerile.”
As Colville himself admitted, by looking for faults in Gay he hoped to ease the hurt of her steadfast unwillingness to return his affections. But he could not help it: He was still in love.
They moved on to the Café de Paris, a popular nightclub, and there “her charms and real lovableness reasserted themselves and I forgot the somewhat unpleasant impression I had been forming.” They talked, drank champagne, and danced. An impersonator did renditions of Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo.
Colville was back in his own bed—alone—at two A.M., content in the belief that Gay might be warming to him at last.