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said; an elderly phrase which always made Laurence impatient.
    They walked slowly, arm-in-arm, and paused sometimes to lean over the sea-wall. He was glad that she had turned away from the cliff and that they were going towards the centre of the town and away from the rustic-work steps and the house among the trees.
    ‘I should like to come down again during the week,’ he said. ‘On Thursday, if you would like that, if there is anything I could do.’ (The by-election was on Thursday.)
    ‘How good of you, Vinny!’
    ‘Don’t make any arrangements for me here … I will take you out to luncheon … and perhaps you could get a room for me somewhere.’
    ‘But, of course, you will be with us.’
    ‘Not when Laurence is away.’
    ‘Darling, don’t be pompous. Who’s to care?’
    ‘I care – for your sake, if you will not care for your own.’
    She was most touched by this and could not reply.
    ‘What silly little shoes to come walking in,’ he said.
    She glanced down to see which shoes they were, then asked: ‘Won’t your mother miss you, if you are away so much?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Shall we turn back now?’
    The moon seemed to be racing up through the clouds, whichlooked too cumbrous to move. Macrocarpa trees glistened under the lamps as if wet. Isabella, seeing the lighted windows at the cliff-top, suddenly said: ‘Perhaps Rose Kelsey would have room for you. It would be nice and near. If you are sure that you must be so prim.’
    ‘Quite sure.’
    ‘But at our age …!’
    ‘I am quite sure,’ he repeated.
    He was so afraid lest his excitement should be communicated to her that he withdrew his arm and pretended to be going to sneeze. Halted, fumbling for his handkerchief, he felt stricken by his recollection of the woman on the sands. Only with difficulty did he take Isabella’s arm again. They walked on more briskly, without a word; but in the hall, as she was unwinding her scarf, she asked:
    ‘Why do you look like that?’
    Inevitably, he said: ‘Like what?’
    ‘You’ve stopped now. You looked …’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘As if you were thinking of something.’
    He laughed, but she was not so undiscerning that she failed to detect relief in his laughter.
    ‘Would you like some whisky?’ she asked. ‘I quite forgot to ask you last night. Such a terrible hostess. Harry always did the drinks.’
    ‘You are the loveliest hostess, because you make people happy as well as comfortable.’
    ‘I don’t think
I
was making you look like that.’
    ‘
This
night, I should like some whisky please.’
    Following him into the parlour, she persisted: ‘But why
this
night.’
    ‘Because I had some luck today.’
    ‘What sort of luck?’
    ‘A little horse-racing sort of luck,’ he lied.
    ‘How nice!’ she said, after a pause. They drank in silence, with alternate glances at one another.
    ‘And what was the name of the horse?’ she suddenly asked, in a rallying, condescending way.
    ‘Well, my dear Isabella, as I imagine you don’t know one horse from another, you need not be bored with all that.’
    ‘Do you often do it?’ she asked dully.
    ‘Very seldom; but this was a special tip. My dear, don’t look so disapproving! I am sure you sometimes have had a little flutter on the Derby.’
    ‘Never,’ she said truthfully. Neither she nor Evalie concerned themselves with the big races. They felt contempt for those who did; as regular churchgoers must feel contempt for the crowds who worship only at Easter and Harvest Festivals.
    ‘I have enjoyed myself enormously,’ Vinny said, smiling at her vexation.
    He awoke the next morning to a brilliant room and gulls making peevish noises near the window. He had wakened abruptly, bringing a remnant of dream with him, disturbing, erotic. In this dream, from the influence of which he lay still and bewildered, the woman on the sands had not broken away from him, nor recoiled from his touch. Having created a personality for her, and behaviour, and even response,