Dent's collapse and partial disengagement from the international societies brought liberation of sorts; his prolonged convalescence over the summer of 1936 gave him more time to focus on writing, research and on Sadler's Wells. That autumn he was to give an important lecture and receive his honorary doctorate from Harvard, his first trip to the USA and the first of several transatlantic voyages paid for by his lecture fees. With so many old friends and colleagues establishing themselves there, the way had already been paved, his reputation high. After all the ISCM–ISMR baggage his warm welcomes in the USA came as a pleasant surprise; by the time war threatened to break out again, Dent had considered seriously the idea of moving to the USA. Having survived the attempted ISMR coup and with no outside pressures, he even toyed with the idea of going back to Barcelona with JB. ‘I have had no news from Barcelona, but I feel sure it is the safest and most reasonable town in Spain, whatever happens.’ Dent's wilful optimism about world affairs never left him, and he indulged this fantasy until August, when the news finally broke of the Spanish Civil War.

‘I am getting better, but slowly’, he had written to Jack Gordon in May. ‘The doctor says it is all due to mental fatigue and worry and that rest and quiet are more important than diet restrictions – though I am still on a very quiet menu!’ Jack offered him his flat in Brunswick Square, Brighton, which Dent snapped up; he still had his Harvard lecture to prepare, his Cornell lectures on Romantic opera and several translations in train, Busoni's Turandot for Chisholm and Rigoletto. He craved company of the right sort, and Scott Goddard was currently sharing Jack's flat, commuting from London, while Brighton itself was full of established gay circles, often centred around its many excellent, often arcane bookshops; for years afterwards Dent did regular business with several of them. But however proximate, no Glyndebourne; Dent was disinclined, partly because of some unspecified disagreement with John Christie over his Figaro translation, but mostly because the antipathy was by now hard-wired. Another attraction presented itself in the unlikely shape of Montague Summers3 ‘and his most attractive (and even learned) acolyte!’.