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life, and . . . God knows what else.” Her voice dropped on the final phrase, as if at the last minute she regretted saying it.
    “Should I give it my pride as well?” he said. He carried on dressing, tying a tight little knot in his necktie. “I’ve turned a jobbing printer’s into one of the thousand biggest companies in the country. My business is worth five times what my father’s was. I put it together, and I have to make it work.”
    “You have to do better than your father.”
    “Is that such a poor ambition?”
    “Yes!” Her sudden vehemence was a shock. “You should want good health, and long life, and—and my happiness.”
    “If the company was prosperous, perhaps I could sell it. As things are, I wouldn’t get its asset value.” He looked at his watch. “I must go down.”
    He descended the broad staircase. A portrait of his father dominated the hall. People often thought it was Derek at fifty. In fact it was Jasper at sixty-five. The phone on the hall stand shrilled as he passed. He ignored it: he did not take calls in the morning.
    He went into the small dining room—the large one was reserved for parties, which were rare these days. The circular table was laid with silver cutlery. An elderly woman in an apron brought in half a grapefruit in a bone china dish.
    “Not today, Mrs. Tremlett,” he told her. “Just a cup of tea, please.” He picked up The Financial Times.
    The woman hesitated, then put the dish down in Ellen’s place. Hamilton glanced up. “Just take it away, will you?” he said irritably. “Serve Mrs. Hamilton’s breakfast when Mrs. Hamilton comes down, and not before, please.”
    “Very good,” Mrs. Tremlett murmured. She took the grapefruit away.
    When Ellen came in she picked up the argument where they had left it. “I don’t think it matters whether you get five million or five hundred thousand for the company. Either way we’d be better off than we are now. Since we don’t live comfortably, I fail to see the point of being comfortably off.”
    He put down the paper and looked at her. She was wearing an original tailored suit in a cream-colored fabric, with a printed silk blouse and handmade shoes. He said: “You have a pleasant home, with a small staff. You’ve friends here, and a social life in Town when you care to take advantage of it. This morning you’re wearing several hundred pounds’ worth of clothes, and you’ll probably go no farther than the village. Sometimes I wonder what you want out of life.”
    She blushed—a rare event. “I’ll tell you,” she began.
    There was a knock at the door, and a good-looking man came in, wearing an overcoat and carrying a cap. “Good morning, sir, madam,” he said. “If we’re to catch the seven forty-five, sir . . .”
    Hamilton said: “All right, Pritchard. Just wait in the hall.”
    “Very good, sir. May I ask if you’ll be using the car today, madam?”
    Hamilton looked at Ellen. She kept her eyes on her dish as she said: “I expect so, yes.”
    Pritchard nodded and went out.
    Hamilton said: “You were about to tell me what you want out of life.”
    “I don’t think it’s a breakfast-table subject, especially when you’re rushing to catch a train.”
    “Very well.” He stood up. “Enjoy your drive. Don’t go too fast.”
    “What?”
    “Drive carefully.”
    “Oh. Oh, Pritchard drives me.”
    He bent to kiss her cheek, but she turned her face to him and kissed his lips. When he pulled away, her face was flushed. She held his arm and said: “I want you, Derek.”
    He stared at her.
    “I want us to spend a long, contented retirement together,” she went on, speaking hurriedly. “I want you to relax, and eat the right food, and grow healthy and slim again. I want the man who came courting in an open-top Riley, and the man who came back from the war with medals and married me, and the man who held my hand when I bore my children. I want to love you. ”
    He stood nonplussed. She had never