Betty did not answer. After a pause Charles said, ‘Yes, but he’s not in at the moment. Won’t you come in and leave a message?’

The young woman climbed up the remaining rungs of the ladder and stood facing them.

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ she said, looking at Betty as if she were a gall stone on an X-ray plate. ‘We’ve met, haven’t we?’

‘Once,’ said Betty laconically. ‘Pity it had to happen twice.’

A young man climbed up the ladder and stood in a curious attitude, half arrogant and half obsequious, by the girl’s side. It was George Hutchins.

Charles looked at him sympathetically. He was obviously rather ill at ease. None of the lessons he had learnt in the normal context of his life were of any use in this situation; least of all his canny orderliness and slick social climbing. Charles felt like an ex-con­vict who goes back to the prison on visiting day and sees the others still there and hates himself for getting pleasure from the com­parison between his freedom and their imprisonment. He stared at Hutchins through a grille: you’ll never come out, yours is a life sentence. How are they all at home? Nevermind about that. This is your home now.

‘Hello, George,’ he said. ‘Won’t you do some introducing? The ladies don’t seem to know one another’s names.’

‘I know her name all right,’ said Betty. ‘I just don’t use bad language, that’s all.’

Hutchins swayed slightly on his feet. He was broadshouldered and plump, so that the effect was of a sack of meal on a shifting floor. His red face glistened.

‘This is Charles Lumley, June,’ he said to the young woman. Charles waited for him to complete the introduction by telling him her name, but some kind of inhibitory tension prevented him. He did not seem able to speak her name. Perhaps he was in love with her.

‘I’m June Veeber,’ said the girl to Charles. She looked at him gravely and impudently. He had been feeling calm, but suddenly his knee-joints turned to water and he felt glad he was sitting down. Being a window-cleaner, he did not need to stand when introduced to a lady. He was not attractive to women, but never­theless it had happened to him now and again to receive sultry looks and the rest of the pre-bedroom signals from them. No doubt they had been doing it to keep in practice. No doubt that was what Miss Veeber was doing it for, though in her case he divined that it was probably automatic and involuntary.

He clutched the tattered arms of his chair with damp palms. ‘How do you do?’ he muttered. She ran her eyes over him. His spine felt like a row of cotton reels strung on a wire. Then the wire became red hot and melted and the cotton reels clattered to the ground.