She turned back to him. "I was thinking how lucky it is that The Hour happened to be for sale, and that I had the nerve to urge Lewis to buy it. It's going to be exactly the kind of job he likes. I only wish you'd stayed on it, Frenny."

Frenside shook his head. "Better not. I'm always available as an adviser, if he needs one. But new blood all round was what was wanted. And now we'll see—"

Halo looked up at him a little sharply. "See—?"

"What he's going to make of it."

Her lips parted, as if on a quick retort; then they closed again, and with a slight shrug she dropped back into her chair. "Of course he'll make mistakes—"

"Of course. But that's sometimes stimulating."

She interrupted: "The great thing for a man like Lewis, with rather too much money, and decidedly too many talents, is to canalize both—isn't it? He's never before been able to make up his mind, to find anything that entirely suited him. I believe this does; I believe it's going to group his scattered interests, and hold him to his job as no … no vague sense of duty would… ."

"Bless you, the sense of duty is prehistoric; even that idea of our first duty being to ourselves, which seemed so mad and bad in the 'nineties, wouldn't interest a baby nowadays. But I daresay Tarrant'll take hold—for a while—"

"Ah, you underrate him!" Halo flashed out, rising again nervously. People were right, after all, when they said Frenside's way of encouraging you was like a doctor's saying: "Nothing will make any difference now."