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time.
    ‘Had a good day, Father?’ she asked politely. It was the kind of remark a wife might have made after many years.
    ‘Not so bad, and you?’ He became a coward when he watched her; he hated to oppose her in anything, and he tried to avoid for so long as possible the subject of her purchases. He knew that her monthly allowance had gone two weeks ago on some ear-rings she had fancied and a small statue of St Seraphina.
    ‘I got top marks today in Dogma and Morals.’
    ‘Fine, fine. What were the questions?’
    ‘I did best on Venial Sin.’
    ‘I saw Dr Hasselbacher this morning,’ he said with apparent irrelevance.
    She replied politely, ‘I hope he was well.’ The duenna, he considered, was overdoing it. People praised Catholic schools for teaching deportment, but surely deportment was intended only to impress strangers. He thought sadly, But I
am
a stranger. He was unable to follow her into her strange world of candles and lace and holy water and genuflections. Sometimes he felt that he had no child.
    ‘He’s coming in for a drink on your birthday. I thought we might go afterwards to a night-club.’
    ‘A night-club!’ The duenna must have momentarily looked elsewhere as Milly exclaimed, ‘O Gloria Patri.’
    ‘You always used to say Alleluia.’
    ‘That was in Lower Four. Which night-club?’
    ‘I thought perhaps the Nacional.’
    ‘Not the Shanghai Theatre?’
    ‘Certainly not the Shanghai Theatre. I can’t think how you’ve even heard of the place.’
    ‘In a school things get around.’
    Wormold said, ‘We haven’t discussed your present. A seventeenth birthday is no ordinary one. I was wondering …’
    ‘Really and truly,’ Milly said, ‘there’s nothing in the world I want.’
    Wormold remembered with apprehension that enormous package. If she had really gone out and got everything she wanted … He pleaded with her, ‘Surely there must be something you still want.’
    ‘Nothing. Really nothing.’
    ‘A new swim-suit,’ he suggested desperately.
    ‘Well, there is one thing … But I thought we might count it as a Christmas present too, and next year’s and the year after that …’
    ‘Good heavens, what is it?’
    ‘You wouldn’t have to worry about presents any more for a long time.’
    ‘Don’t tell me you want a Jaguar.’
    ‘Oh no, this is quite a small present. Not a car. This would last for years. It’s an awfully economical idea. It might even, in a way, save petrol.’
    ‘Save petrol?’
    ‘And today I got all the etceteras – with my own money.’
    ‘You haven’t got any money. I had to lend you three pesos for Saint Seraphina.’
    But my credit’s good.’
    ‘Milly, I’ve told you over and over again I won’t have you buying on credit. Anyway it’s my credit, not yours, and my credit’s going down all the time.’
    ‘Poor Father. Are we on the edge of ruin?’
    ‘Oh, I expect things will pick up again when the disturbances are over.’
    ‘I thought there were always disturbances in Cuba. If the worst came to the worst I could go out and work, couldn’t I?’
    ‘What at?’
    ‘Like Jane Eyre I could be a governess.’
    ‘Who would take you?’
    ‘Senor Perez.’
    ‘Milly, what on earth are you talking about? He’s living with his fourth wife, you’re a Catholic. …’
    ‘I might have a special vocation to sinners,’ Milly said.
    ‘Milly, what nonsense you talk. Anyway, I’m not ruined. Not yet. As far as I know. Milly, what have you been buying?’
    ‘Come and see.’ He followed her into her bedroom. A saddle lay on her bed; a bridle and bit were hanging on the wall from the nails she had driven in (she had knocked off a heel from her best evening shoes in doing it); reins were draped between the light brackets; a whip was propped up on the dressing-table. He said hopelessly, ‘Where’s the horse?’ and half expected it to appear from the bathroom.
    ‘In a stable near the Country Club. Guess what she’s called.’
    ‘How can