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keep those great doors open, he thought, on a night like this. For a moment before he slept he saw her throwing back the coverings of the bed and moving like a swimmer through the stream of the wind, her hair lifted, gasping and laughing at the sweep of it past her sides.

CHAPTER 3
    A FEW MORNINGS LATER , Janet looked up from a letter at breakfast and said, “What conference is it that’s being held here next week?”
    “None that I know of. Nothing medical, anyway.”
    “Peggy Leach says she’s coming over for it, and wants to know if we can put her up.”
    “I expect it’s an educational thing. They use the old Manor for them sometimes. I don’t know her, do I? Does she teach?”
    “I haven’t met her lately. We were at school together. She was senior to me; very popular and good at games. Fancy her remembering me.”
    Kit laughed. “Did you have a crush on her?”
    “How unkind you are, Kit.” She put the letter down. “Every one’s sentimental at school. It isn’t anything to sneer at.”
    “I didn’t mean to. We’re all products of the system.”
    “There again. All your criticism is so destructive nowadays, Kit. I do so wish you hadn’t changed like this. That’s how Dr. McKinnon always talks.”
    Kit got up. “I’ve a heavy round this morning,” he said. “Don’t wait lunch for me if I’m late.”
    “I shall see you get a proper meal, dear, whatever time you come in.”
    She picked up her next letter, and slit the envelope with neat-fingered precision. Kit went down to his consulting room.
    In the course of his morning round he visited Laurel Dene and was received, as he had been each time since the night call, by Pedlow. Evidently in the mornings the girl, Christie, went out. Kit was glad to have avoided her. His brief disturbance had settled, and everything had shrunk to the reasonable proportions of morning. He had analyzed and dismissed the incident, feeling detached and clinical. He felt safe from entanglements; he looked forward to an uncomplicated future, devoted chiefly to work and ideas. He had had enough of personal relationships to last him the rest of his life, and had never taken easily to the kind of episode in which no personal relationship was involved.
    He was pleased with his work that morning. X-ray confirmed a diagnosis which had been a long shot; a new vaccine treatment was getting results; his worst diabetic was sugar-free for the third day. Miss Heath had looked better too, and he had walked out of the house unconcerned with anything else. He was whistling under his breath as he drove through the principal shopping street of the town. There was a Belisha crossing in the middle of it, and he slowed down for a group of pedestrians. The last one to cross was the girl from Laurel Dene. She was wearing a neat olive-green suit with a hat and shoes the colour of gingerbread. Kit thought how average she looked, groomed into the uniform of the season; the angle of the hat, the face-tints, the clothes striking the moment’s balance between waist, shoulders and hips; even the kind of walk that the clothes required. At this moment she saw him; they exchanged conventional salutes and smiles. Kit drove on, unmoved as he would have been by the model in a gown-shop window; and experiencing, under the satisfaction that this afforded, a curious feeling of flatness. Dispassionately he noted that her ankles, which had been out of sight last time, were good; and returned to the consideration of his last case.
    He went to bed tired with a good day’s work; and dreamed disturbingly, as, when he was most pleased with the settled pattern of his life, he sometimes did.
    A couple of afternoons later, he met Janet carrying a bowl of bronze chrysanthemums into the guest room. She was humming to herself, and looked more animated than she had been for weeks. “Those are nice.” He stopped for a moment to breathe their sharp frosty smell. “You’re good with flowers, Janie. Who’ve we got