text: Eventually, Hirst reenters and struggles to remember a recent dream. All are now drinking, and Hirst mentions an album of photographs he keeps, commenting on the appearances of the people in the album. He does not seem to remember Spooner's identity, insisting that his true friends are kept safely in the album. Becoming less and less coherent, Hirst continues to ponder his dream—involving someone drowning—when Spooner abruptly says that he was the one drowning in the dream. Hirst drunkenly collapses again and Spooner now rushes in to Hirst's aid, brushing away the two younger men and claiming to be Hirst's true friend. The younger pair becomes defensive and accusatory, asserting their obligation to protect Hirst against "men of evil". Briggs helps Hirst out of the room, and Foster concludes to Spooner, "Listen. You know what it's like when you're in a room with the light on and then suddenly the light goes out? I'll show you. It's like this". He flicks off the lights, causing a blackout.
  Act 2
  Alone the next morning, Spooner stands from his chair and attempts to leave, but the door is locked. Briggs, Hirst's manservant, soon enters; he delivers food and champagne, ignores Spooner's queries about the locked door, and calls the other men poets. Hirst himself then bursts in, delighted to see Spooner, whom he strangely mistakes for, or pretends is, an old friend. He speaks as though he and Spooner were Oxbridge classmates in the 1930s, and the two bizarrely discuss scandalous romantic encounters they had with the same women, leading to a series of increasingly questionable reminiscences and ending with Spooner directly accusing Hirst of having an affair with his wife.