The Captain spoke out on a variety of subjects, always exhorting her not to talk to him of these matters. He was unused, he divulged, to women in his office. He liked his own office, with at most a corporal in attendance. He was a man who lived among men. (Four years earlier, although he did not say this, he had abandoned a wife and child in Battleford, Saskatchewan.) He was accustomed to working with men throughout the day; to returning in the evening to B.O.Q.

This, though Miss Kingslake could not know it, was Bachelor Officers’ Quarters.

“B.O.Q., that’s the place for me.”

“I’m sure.”

When Rees looked in to retrieve his light meter, the Captain brushed away his thanks. “Delighted to be of service, sir.”

“Sorry to disturb you busy people.”

The sun came round to the front of the building, and the Captain went out and stood in it. He could be seen by Miss Kingslake from where she sat, planted with his back to the window and his feet wide apart. He had taken off his dark glasses for the first time.

Miss Kingslake got up from her desk and brought a mirror out from her handbag. Walking over to the light, she touched the discreet contours of her hair with an accustomed hand and took the opportunity to put on face powder. When this was done, she held the mirror up and made a face into it. In a high voice, as if mimicking a child, she said “Pazienza.” After a moment she added, also out loud, “What-have-you and so on.” Standing there in a square of sunlight, she rocked back and forth on her sensible heels.

She put the mirror away and came back to her desk. She made up a large number of cardboard files, feeling ashamed of herself.

Miss Kingslake sat in a chair by Grilli’s desk, a notebook in her lap, while he spoke on the telephone. Grilli talked loudly in order not to be afraid, like a person in the dark. If he does a good job, she reasoned, why should I be concerned about his personality? She wished she were less exacting. She wished she were more—

“Outgoing.” Grilli dictated a cable, turning loose sheets on his blotter all the while. He drafted a short letter to his section at Headquarters. “Date that today,” he said.

“Yes of course.”

“I mean Sunday. Not ‘20th’—but ‘Sunday 20th,’ get it?”

He slapped down a handwritten list on the desk by Miss Kingslake’s arm. “Mr. Rees is throwing a party for the government officials here. Invitations to go out today, champagne party at the hotel, Wednesday, six o’clock.”

Miss Kingslake placed the list on her knee, under her notebook. “Any special wording?”

“Yeah.” Grilli read from the reverse of the paper on which Rees had written the commandant’s name. “To express heartfelt gratitude, profound appreciation for cooperation, etc., you fix it.”