‘I was just going to lunch,’ she told them quickly, not wanting to interrupt whatever it was they were doing together. ‘If you go early it doesn’t take so long, and I want to get back to work …’

‘Hello, Helen,’ said Stephen easily. ‘I haven’t seen you since last term, have I? Good Vac?’

Helen bit her lip, but it wasn’t a question that needed to be answered. Stephen had cocked his head to one side to read the titles of the books under her arm.

‘Mmm, mmm, good. Oh, don’t bother with that one,’ he pointed. He was effortlessly back in the role of teacher again.

Impulsively, Chloe took Helen’s arm. ‘Look, we’re going to the Playhouse to hear some girls audition for your friend Oliver’s play. Come with us. That’ll be all right, Stephen, won’t it?’

‘I should think so,’ Stephen said without enthusiasm. He would have preferred to keep this effervescent, glowing girl to himself rather than have half the students in town accompanying them.

‘Really?’ Helen’s face lit with a wash of colour that spread over her pale cheeks. ‘I’d love to come along and watch. You know, Tom Hart even asked me to have a go, so I’d be intrigued to see what people have to do.’

It was something else that had brought the blush to her cheeks. Oliver had asked her, too, one morning during the breathless week that had just passed.

He had come strolling into the library where she was working and she heard the rustle of people turning to stare before she looked up herself. Oliver leaned over and took the pen out of her fingers before kissing the knuckles. The girl next to Helen gasped audibly.

‘Come and be my Rosalind,’ he said. He made no attempt to whisper and she heard his voice carrying to the far corners of the room. But no-one tried to say hush to Oliver.

‘I can’t act,’ she murmured.

Oliver’s eyebrows shot up. ‘A good thing too. Don’t ever try to act with me, because I’ll know.’ He kissed her, a gentle experimental kiss as if they were alone in the world. Even here, Helen felt herself tremble in response. ‘No,’ he said meditatively. ‘You don’t pretend anything.’

Helen left her papers in a drift on the desk and stumbled out of the library.

Oliver followed her, bestowing his dazzling smile on the rows of readers.

‘Oliver,’ she gasped, shaking with laughter, ‘don’t do this. What must all those people think, in there?’

There was a narrow stone window beside them, with a dizzy view down to an oval of lawn set like a green jewel in an ancient ring. He drew her into the window embrasure and held her there against the smooth stone.

‘It doesn’t matter to us,’ he told her, ‘what anyone thinks. Does it?’