‘Here we are, you see,’ Dikon called out with an effort at gaiety. The Claires had risen. Impelled by confusion, doubt and apology, Dikon shook hands blindly all round. Barbara looked nervously over his shoulder and he saw with a dismay which he afterwards recognized as prophetic that she had gone white to her unpainted lips.

He felt Gaunt’s hand on his arm and hurriedly introduced him.

Mrs Claire brought poise to the situation, Dikon realized, but it was the kind of poise with which Gaunt was quite unfamiliar. She might have been welcoming a bishop-suffragan to a slum parish, a bishop-suffragan in poor health.

‘Such a long journey,’ she said anxiously. ‘You must be so tired.’

‘Not a bit of it,’ said Gaunt, who had arrived at an age when actors affect a certain air of youthful hardihood.

‘But it’s such a dreadful road. And you look very tired,’ she persisted gently. Dikon saw Gaunt’s smile grow formal. He turned to Barbara. For some reason which he had not attempted to analyse, Dikon wanted Gaunt to like Barbara. It was with apprehension that he watched her give a galvanic jerk, open her eyes very wide, and put her head on one side like a chidden puppy. ‘Oh, hell,’ he thought, ‘she’s going to be funny.’

‘Welcome,’ Barbara said in her sepulchral voice, ‘to the humble abode.’ Gaunt dropped her hand rather quickly.

‘Find us very quiet, I’m afraid,’ Colonel Claire said, looking quickly at Gaunt and away again. ‘Not much in your line, this country, what?’

‘But we’ve just been remarking,’ Gaunt said lightly, ‘that your landscape reeks of theatre.’ He waved his stick at Rangi’s Peak. ‘One expects to hear the orchestra.’ Colonel Claire looked baffled and slightly offended.

‘My brother,’ Mrs Claire murmured. Dr Ackrington limped forward. Dikon’s attention was distracted from this last encounter by the behaviour of Simon Claire, who suddenly lurched out of cover, strode down the steps and seized the astounded Colly by the hand. Colly, who was about to unload the car, edged behind it.

‘How are you?’ Simon said loudly. ‘Give you a hand with that stuff.’

‘That’s all right, thank you, sir.’

‘Come on,’ Simon insisted and laid violent hands on a pigskin dressing case which he lugged from the car and dumped none too gently on the pumice. Colly gave a little cry of dismay.

‘Here, here, here!’ a loud voice expostulated. Mr Questing thundered out of the house and down the steps. ‘Cut that out, young fellow,’ he ordered and shouldered Simon away from the car.

‘Why?’ Simon demanded.

‘That’s no way to treat high-class stuff,’ bustled Mr Questing with an air of intolerable patronage. ‘You’ll have to learn better than that. Handle it carefully.’ He advanced upon Dikon. ‘We’re willing,’ he laughed, ‘but we’ve a lot to learn. Well, well, well, how’s the young gentleman?’