Chris said Only smelt one, and then, on an impulse, Ma, I want the day off. Can you spare me?

Ma said If you like: you’re hardly my slave, Chris said she knew that, but would Ma manage herself? Ma said she’d managed a good fifty-five years, off and on, and as far as she kenned at the moment she was neither a cripple nor had brain-concussion. So Chris laughed and said I’m off to the country.

And she ran up and knocked at Ewan’s door and went in and found him not in bed, up, naked, a long, nice naked leg and that narrow waist that you envied in men, lovely folk men, he was standing and stretching, stark, the bandage gone from his head. No shyness in Ewan, just a cool disinterest, he turned and grinned I’m feeling my feet. Too hot to lie in bed. Chris: let’s take a holiday out in the country!

She said I was off for one on my own, his face fell a little, then he nodded All right. Have a good time.—But aren’t you coming? —Not if you want to be on your own. And Chris said that was daft, she would always want him, and he said that was nice, and meant it, with a sudden glint of a grey granite smile nipped across to where she stood and cuddled her, funny to be cuddled by a naked man, she made out she was shocked, for fun, and he didn’t see that, said Oh, sorry, and went back to his clothes. A minute Chris stood with the queerest feeling of lostness, staring at him, fun was beyond Εwan.

Then, because she knew that couldn’t be helped, daft to expect him other than he was, she said Be ready in half an hour, and went down to her room and changed, looked at her clothes and found a light frock, took off all she wore and looked at herself, as of old, with cool scrutiny, seeing mirrored her face with the broad cheekbones, seeing the long white lines of thigh and waist and knee, not very much need to envy men. The queer years that I’ve been with you! she said to the earnest thing in the mirror, and the shadow-self smiled back with golden eyes, shadow and self no longer woe, light-hearted suddenly as she dressed in haste to be gone for a day from Duncairn and herself.

She went into the sitting-room for a book, the place half in darkness, half the blinds drawn against the sting of the sun without. And the place wasn’t deserted as usually it was, Miss Johns was sitting in the biggest chair, on her heels, not reading, chin in hand looking out through the window, a little lost pussy-cat Chris thought, with her trim black hair and her lobeless ears. She smiled up at Chris with that fenceless smile that came when the brassy shyness went: and Chris was moved to an impulse again. I’m going for a jaunt to the country today. Would you like to come—if you’ve nothing else to do?