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promise of reprieve made him feel, instead of pleasure, a weary sense of defeat. She was awake, however, looking out placidly across the open book sunk on her knees, at the visible strip of sea by which the house modestly justified its name. A good profile, he thought dimly: she could afford to do her hair in one of those piled-up styles that the wrong women always wear. Better not, though; she’d be one of those that leave a bunch of wisps hanging out behind, and look as if they’d screwed it up for a bath …
    “Nice evening, isn’t it? I hope I didn’t disturb you.”
    “Not at all,” said Miss Searle. She was aware that she had given a startled little jump, and felt the half-conscious resentment of people surprised in what they have believed to be solitude, a resentment so much deeper than vanity that its origins are probably to be found in the jungle and the cave. However, this was the first voluntary approach that Mr Langton had made to anyone since his arrival three days ago. She smiled, and wished she had not ignored a vague prompting to tidy herself before tea.
    “You’ve been very fortunate with the weather today.”
    “Yes. Very.” His tone was flat: she took it as a comment on her triteness (he was, she thought, that kind of man) and it annoyed her; she was sensitive to criticism of this kind. Still, if he were bored there was no need for him to sit down, as he was doing, in the chair left by Miss Fisher a few minutes before. She decided, since he was so contemptuous of one’s conversational gambits, to leave the next to him. This resulted in a perceptible pause.
    Neil was in fact racking his brains. Their common ground was, obviously, shop; but this must lead either to personal details, or to the acute awkwardness of refusing them. In desperation, he began a long and detailed account of his day’s walking. As scarcely any of his reactions to what he had seen were repeatable, the effect was a little colourless. Miss Searle, however, perceived in it a willing spirit. She asked him whether he had yet visited the Doone Valley. He had; they agreed that Blackmore had grossly romanticised this not very impressive coombe. At the back of her mind was the thought that Miss Fisher, when she went indoors, had said she would be back in a few minutes, and that Mr Langton was occupying her chair. One could hardly tell him so with civility, and no doubt if she came out he would vacate it. It was, of course, also possible that she would see him from indoors and stay away.
    “But of course,” she said, “this part of the country is soaked in literature. Not only Lorna Doone, but Kubla Khan.”
    “Yes,” said Neil absently, “I’ve been there too.”
    “I beg your pardon? Oh, you mean to Coleridge’s cottage, of course.”
    Hastily closing a door which he had not meant to open, Neil accepted the correction. To forestall further details (since he had never seen the building and did not know where it was) he talked on quickly. “I don’t know whether you feel as sorry as I do for the Person from Porlock. It’s a little hard, after all, to make an innocent call on legitimate business, and find you’ve walked into immortal infamy along with the lunatic who smashed the Portland Vase.”
    “I’m afraid I’ve shared in the injustice,” said Miss Searle smiling. “It’s the kind of story children and students can be relied on to remember.”
    “Yes. And they don’t stop to think that if Coleridge hadn’t rotted his will-power with opium besides giving himself spectacular dreams, he’d just have locked himself in and finished the job.” As soon as he had said it, he reflected that denunciations of this kind are characteristic of men who distrust their own strength.
    Miss Searle’s experience of men, though necessarily wide, was not deep. It had been conditioned (like much of her other experience) by the fact that she had been a very plain child, and had been encouraged to over-compensate for it by