This mood of acceptance sustained them through their morning’s work. At luncheon when the party of six assembled, Terence noticed that her employer was less talkative than usual and she realized that she herself was being closely watched by Flossie. This did not greatly disturb her. She thought vaguely, ‘I suppose she merely said to herself that it’s not much like me to put my hand on any one’s shoulder. I suppose she thinks it was a bit of presumption on my part. She’s noticing me as a human being.’

At the end of lunch Flossie suddenly announced that she wanted Terence to work with her all the afternoon. She kept Terence hard at it, taking down letters and typing them. It was a perfectly normal routine and at first Terence noticed nothing unusual in Flossie’s manner. Presently, however, she became conscious that Flossie, from behind the table, across the room, or by the fireplace was watching her closely. She would deny herself the uncomfortable experience of meeting this scrutiny but sooner or later she would find herself unable to resist and would look up, and there, sure enough, would be that gimlet-like stare that contrived to be at once so penetrating and so expressionless. Terence began to feel that she could not support this behaviour and to wish, in acute discomfort, that Florence would speak to, or even upbraid her. The flood of contentment that had come upon her when she knew that Rubrick loved her now receded and left in its wake a sensation of shame. She began to see herself with Flossie’s eyes as a second-rate little typist who flirted with her employer’s husband. She felt sick and humiliated and was filled with a kind of impatience for the worst to happen. There must be a climax, she thought, or she would never recover from the self-disgust that Flossie’s stare had put upon her. But there was no climax. They plodded on with their work. When at last they had finished and Terence was gathering together her papers, Flossie, as she walked to the door, said over her shoulder, ‘I don’t think Mr Rubrick’s at all well.’ Calling him ‘Mr Rubrick’, Terence felt, put her very neatly in her place. ‘I don’t consider,’ Florence added, ‘that we should bother him just now with our silly old statistics. I am rather worried about him. We’ll just leave him quietly to himself, Miss Lynne. Will you remember that?’ And she went out, leaving Terence to draw what conclusions she chose from this pronouncement.

‘And it was after that,’ Terence said, ‘almost immediately after—it was the same night, at dinner—when the change you all noticed, appeared in her manner towards him. To me it was horrible.’