Prone in bed, plaster from waist to knees, Charles felt more than ever at a disadvantage in dealing with this man who had always subtly overpowered him with suave self-assurance and blandness. The whole tangle of his emotions towards Roderick, the ambivalence of his hatred for Veronica’s seemingly jealous guardian and his will to feel kindly towards him as her relative and benefactor, had been mirrored in his utter inability to measure up to Roderick, to play, as it were, in his key. But his former difficulty was nothing compared with this; for his physical weak­ness and imprisonment now had its analogy in the moral hand­cuffs which Roderick had clicked on and locked by his display of expensive generosity. He wished to feel gratitude, but the whole machinery of his reactions was too complex, and too much out of order, for any such simple and good emotion to be possible. He looked stonily, yet with obvious helplessness, at his captor.

Roderick, for his part, was smoothness itself. He was giving a first-rate performance in the rôle of himself being smooth. He padded towards the bed, mimicking with great skill his own soft-footed manner of progression. His head was inclined slightly forward; he was imitating himself being calmly, gently concerned for another’s welfare.

‘And how do you find yourself after all these ordeals?’

‘Quite easily,’ Charles replied with a grotesque attempt at a light laugh. ‘I just look inside the plaster and there I am.’

The jarring note had been struck already. Roderick had had his usual effect of throwing him off balance, rendering him absolutely incapable of judging the right tone, reducing him to an imbecile.

‘I really must thank you for your great kindness,’ he went on primly, veering wildly to the other extreme. It was like a decayed gentlewoman thanking some charitable institution for helping her with the quarter’s rent.

Roderick gave a brilliant, rather impressionistic imitation of himself being slightly pained and at the same time touched and pleased. ‘Look into my eyes,’ his manner said, ‘and notice the blend of rather shy pleasure at finding my kindness appreciated and genuine regret that I could not manage to help you anony­mously.’ When Charles had had a reasonable chance to notice this, the expression was switched off, and replaced by one that indicated the responsible man, aware of his obligations to humanity.

‘I simply heard about your unfortunate accident—read about it in the paper as a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘and as soon as I could get the details about where you were and so on, I naturally did what I could to make you more comfortable.’

‘I’, not ‘we’, read about it. All right, you bastard, if you won’t mention her first, I won’t. We’ll go through the whole visit without mentioning her if you like, since you’re evidently doing it on purpose.