 It is nearly midnight, and I can see that if I don't make a start with writing this story now, I never shall. All evening I've been sitting here trying to force myself to begin, but the more I have thought about it, the more appalled and ashamed and distressed I've become by the whole thing. My idea, and I believe it was a good one, was to try by a process of confession and analysis to discover a reason or, at any rate, some justification for my outrageous behaviour towards Janet de Pelagia. I wanted, essentially, to address myself to an imaginary and sympathetic listener, a kind of mythical you, someone gentle and understanding, to whom I might tell unashamedly every detail of this unfortunate episode. I can only hope that I'm not too upset to make a go of it. If I'm to be quite honest with myself, I suppose I shall have to admit that what is disturbing me most is not so much the sense of my own shame, or even the hurt that I have inflicted upon poor Janet. It is the knowledge that I have made a monstrous fool of myself, and that all my friends, if I can still call them that, all those warm and lovable people used to come so often to my house, must now be regarding me as nothing but a vicious, vengeful old man. Yes, that surely hurts. When I say to you that my friends were my whole life, everything, absolutely everything in it, then perhaps you will begin to understand. Will you? I doubt it, unless I digress for a minute to tell you roughly the sort of person I am. Well, let me see. Now that I come to think of it, I suppose I am after all a type, a rare one, mark you, but nevertheless a quite definite type, the wealthy, leisurely, middle-aged man of culture. Adored, I choose the world carefully by his many friends, for his charm, his money, his air of scholarship, his generosity, and I sincerely hope for himself also. You will find him, this type, only in the big capitals, London, Paris, New York, of that I am certain. The money he has was earned by his dead father, whose memory he is inclined to despise. This is not his fault, for there is something in his makeup that compels him secretly to look down upon all people who never had the wit to learn the difference between Rockingham and Spode. Waterford and Venetian, Sheraton and Chippen. Sample complete. Ready to continue?