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sons, left behind in England, would be asleep. Yes of course they would be. Hours ago! It must be very late …
    Her thoughts veered off at a tangent: Robert - Robert and that woman! Why had it got to be Robert? Why didn’t men see through women like that? Selfish, spoilt, grabbing, dog-in-the-manger women. The kind who would always try and eat their cake and have it, and who so often succeeded in doing both.
    Mrs Leslie reached for the soap and began to wash her gloves, scrubbing savagely at the inoffensive fabric.
    Sally and Andy Page were quarrelling. They quarrelled too often these days and about too many trivial things. They were young, and had yet to learn that the strength of the matrimonial tie is not best proved by subjecting it to constant strain.
    ‘All right then! You don’t care a damn about him, and he’s just
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    a charming chap who dances like a dream! But is that any reason why you should look at him as though you were some frightful bobbysoxer goggling at the latest American crooner?’
    ‘I did nothing of the sort!’
    ‘Oh yes, you did! Everybody must have noticed it. It was quite blatant. You used to do it in Fayid, and now here you go again. One look at that glamorous profile, and you go weak at the knees.’
    The trouble with you,’ said Sally furiously, ‘is that you’re smallminded and riddled with jealousy and inferiority complexes! Just because someone is better looking and better mannered and senior to you, you’re jealous of him, and I’m not allowed to be even polite to him. If he were uglier and more junior, you wouldn’t give a damn! I ought never to have married you. What do I get out of it? I pinch and scrape and save and wear old clothes and never have any fun, and when anyone under sixty speaks to me there’s a vulgar, selfish, jealous scene!’
    ‘Sally, you know that’s not true!’
    ‘It is! It is! You are jealous - and you’re selfish too. You only think of yourself. You wouldn’t let me have a fur coat, but you bought yourself that camera! You sit around and scowl and gloom, and when I talk to Bob Melville, who is amusing and interesting, you resent it and accuse me of behaving like a drooling bobbysoxer!’
    ‘Sally, that isn’t fair. You know it’s not. You knew before you married me that we’d be very hard up. But you wanted us to get married at once
    That’s right! Blame it on to me. And I suppose you didn’t want to marry me at all?’
    ‘Darling, don’tl You know I did. Desperately badly. Only I knew what it would let you in for. I can’t buy you fur coats: and as for the camera, you know quite well that I swopped it with John Ellery for two quid and that set of hunting prints you liked. We shan’t always be as broke as this, darling. And you do have fun, whatever you say. We never seem to stop going to parties. Or giving them - in fact that’s what keeps us permanently in the red!
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    That, and the fact that you spend a small fortune on Chanel scent and Lizzie Arden make-up, and always having your hair done by the most expensive hairdresser you can find, even though you know quite well that it’s “coals to Newcastle” and that you’d look every bit as good if you used no make-up at all and just left your face and your hair alone. No wonder we’re always ‘
    ‘Oh, never mind,’ said Sally drearily. ‘Don’t let’s talk about it any more. We shall only start talking about bills again, and I can’t bear it. I wish I had those diamonds that Brigadier was talking about. Millions! -just think of it! It isn’t fair. I wonder who’s got them now?’
    But Andy did not answer.
    Amazing! thought Brigadier Brindley drowsily. Quite extraordinary! Chance in a thousand … He was asleep.
    •;ŤF
     
    … clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack. The train rushed on through the night towards Berlin, and Miranda began to put words to the monotonous song of the wheels as an alternative to counting sheep. It was long past midnight, but she