Greta looked up. “Elizabeth darling, it’s only the end of September. Don’t think about it for a week or two. You aren’t able to go yet. I don’t mean because you’re sick—I mean because you’re … not yourself.”

She said: “I make no progress.”

“Toward what?”

“Toward him,” she said.

Elizabeth was allowed to stay up for dinner, which they were to have early on her account. When Cyril came home, he kissed her and, having ascertained that she felt better, declared she had never looked worse. She thought she looked odder than she otherwise might because of her deep tan, which made a curious glaze over her pallor. Her hair hung lankly down on her shoulders in separate dark tails. “I’ll wash it tomorrow,” she said, pushing it back behind her ears. “If I feel up to it.”

They were in the kitchen, Greta standing by the stove and Cyril taking down glasses from a shelf. Elizabeth was sitting, still in Cyril’s woolen dressing gown, at the kitchen table, with her back to the window. It was almost fully light, although behind her the sky was reddening and the Jura darkening. Leaning her cheek on her hand, she felt more peaceful than she had all day. With her left hand she made a space for Cyril to put the glasses down among the places laid on the table.

“What would you like to drink?” Cyril asked Greta.

“No,” she said absently, stirring the soup. “I mean, not a real drink. Just Perrier—something like that. Put some syrup in it, if there is any.”

“Disgusting,” he said. He found a bottle of raspberry syrup and made a pink, foaming concoction for her with mineral water. “What an infantile taste,” he remarked, setting it down at her elbow. Greta smiled without looking at him, took a long drink, and put the glass down again. She went on placidly stirring.

“What would you like?” Cyril asked Elizabeth, coming back to the table.

“The same,” she said. It occurred to her that she had been thirsty all day. She could hardly take her eyes off the red glass on the stove.

“God,” he observed, putting an inch of syrup in a glass and reopening the bottle of Perrier.

“I’m so thirsty,” she said. She reached out her hand to take the drink from him.

Greta looked round abruptly. “But, Cyril, what are you doing? She can’t have that—she’s been sick. Have some sense.” She put the spoon down on the stove and looked at him reproachfully. Cyril made a face of comic apology to Elizabeth and turned away with the full glass in his hand.