Alice was excited by his ingenuity and Pamela was used to it. Only Rupert, who had perhaps been nearer actual death than any of them, grew squeamish and was not sorry when the two weeks came to an end and Guy and Pamela were gone. Alice too felt a certain relief. It troubled her that her latent sadism, which she recognized for what it was, should be titillated by Guy’s inventions. With thankfulness she returned to the gentle placebo of her knitting and took up the blue pullover again, all eight inches of it.

Rupert lit a cigarette.

‘I say, I’ve been thinking, why don’t I buy you a knitting machine?’

‘I don’t want a knitting machine, darling,’ said Alice.

‘Had a look at one actually while I was out with old Guy one day. A bit pricey but I don’t mind that, sweetie, if it makes you happy.’

‘I said I don’t want a knitting machine. The point is that I like knitting by hand. I’ve already told you, it’s my hobby, it’s a great interest of mine. Why do I want a big cumbersome machine that takes up space and makes a noise when I’ve got my own two hands?’

He was silent. He watched her fingers working.

‘As a matter of fact, it’s the noise I don’t like,’ he said.

‘What noise?’ said Alice, exasperated.

‘That everlasting click-click-click.’

‘Oh, nonsense! You can’t possibly hear anything right across the room.’

‘I can.’

‘You’ll get used to it,’ said Alice.

But Rupert did not get used to it, and the next time Alice began her knitting he said: ‘It’s not just the clicking, sweetie, it’s the sight of your hands jerking about mechanically all the time. To be perfectly honest with you it gets on my nerves.’

‘Don’t look then.’

‘I can’t help it. There’s an awful sort of fascination that draws my eyes.’

Alice was beginning to feel nervous herself. A good deal of her pleasure was spoilt by those staring eyes and the knowledge of his dislike of what she did. It began to affect the texture of her work, making her take uneven stitches. She went on rather more slowly and after half an hour she let the nine-inch-long piece of blue fabric and the needles fall into her lap.

‘Let’s go out to dinner,’ said Rupert eagerly. ‘We’ll go and have a couple of drinks down on the front and then we’ll drive over to the Queen’s for dinner.’

‘If you like,’ said Alice.

‘And, sweetie, give up that silly old knitting, eh? For my sake? You wouldn’t think twice about doing a little thing like that for me, would you?’

A little thing, he called it. Alice thought of it not twice but many times. She hardly thought of anything else and she lay awake for a large part of the night. But next day she did no knitting and she laid away what she had done in the drawer. Rupert was her husband, and marriage, as she had often heard people say, was a matter of give and take. This she would give to him, remembering all he had given her.