He turned on his heel and walked towards his rooms.

‘Goodnight,’ said Dikon.

She had moved into the light. The look she turned upon him was radiant. ‘You’re terribly lucky, aren’t you?’ said Barbara.

‘Lucky?’

‘Your job. To be with him.’

‘Oh,’ said Dikon, ‘that. Yes, of course.’

‘Goodnight,’ said Barbara, and ran indoors.

He looked after her, absently polishing his glasses with his handkerchief.

v

Barbara lay in bed with her eyes wide open to the dark. Until this moment she had denied the waves of bliss that lapped at the edge of her thoughts. Now she opened her heart to them.

She passed the sequence of those few minutes in the dusk through and through her mind, examining each moment, feeling again its lustre, wondering at her happiness. It is easy to smile at such fervours, but in her unreasoned ecstasy she reached a point of pure enchantment to which she would perhaps never again ascend. The experience may appear more touching but its reality is not impugned if it is recorded that Gaunt, at the same time, was preening himself a little.

‘Do you know, Dikon,’ he said, ‘that strange little devil quivered like a puppy out there in the dusk?’ Dikon did not answer and after a moment Gaunt added: ‘After all, it’s pleasant to know that one’s work can reach so far. The Bard and sulphuric phenomena! An amusing juxtaposition, isn’t it? One lights a little flame, you know. One carries the torch.’

Chapter 5
Mr Questing Goes Down for the Second Time