The late afternoon sun burned against her face. Judith’s sense of pleasurable truancy, disturbed by the woman’s appearance and by her own rudeness, did not return. Her present mood eluded her. She felt not so much a restlessness as an unpeace-fulness, a dissatisfaction. It was as if a cloud had moved across an inner sun, darkening the green, peaceful, inner hills. The bench was uncomfortably hard, but it was no longer possible to continue down the slope, now that the dark woman had passed that way.

On the cliff the boy set down his flashing beer can. It occurred to Judith that they had chosen that place in order to watch the sunset. All at once, as if he were bowing to the sun, the boy leaned slowly and gracefully over, untucked the girl’s crimson T-shirt, and kissed her on the stomach. Judith rose, picked up her manuscript, slung her handbag over her shoulder, and trudged up the trail.

Children, indifferently watched by parents, ran up and down the veranda. A burst of laughter came from one corner: four fat women, all wearing tight pants in pastel shades, were playing cards at a wicker table. Judith passed through the side door into the lounge, where people were walking in every direction. She remembered that tea was served in the dining room at four; perhaps it was not too late, though it was getting on toward half-past. But on the way she decided that she didn’t want tea. It wasn’t the Isle of Wight, for God’s sake. She went up to her room to work until dinner.