‘And what’s so terribly amusing is that she was right all the time about your influenza and your Italian and everything,’ he said. ‘Perfectly maddening for her.’

Lucia sighed pensively.

‘Georgie, she was malicious,’ she observed, ‘and that never pays.’

‘Besides, it serves her right for spying on you,’ Georgie continued.

‘Yes, poor thing. But I shall begin now at once to be kind to her again. She shall come to lunch tomorrow, and you of course. By the way, Georgie, Irene takes so much interest in your painting. It was news to me, for her style is so different from your beautiful, careful work.’

‘No! That’s news to me too,’ said Georgie. ‘She never seemed to see my sketches before: they might have been blank sheets of paper. Does she mean it? She’s not pulling my leg?’

‘Nothing of the sort. And I couldn’t help thinking it was a great opportunity for you to learn something about more modern methods. There is something you know in those fierce canvases of hers.’

‘I wish she had told me sooner,’ said Georgie. ‘We’ve only got a fortnight more here. I shall be very sorry when it’s over, for I felt terribly pleased to be getting back to Tilling this morning. It’ll be dull going back to Riseholme. Don’t you feel that too? I’m sure you must. No plots: no competition.’

Lucia had just received a telegram from Adele concerning the purchase of the Hurst, and it was no use putting off the staggering moment. She felt as if she was Zeus about to discharge a thunderbolt on some unhappy mortal.

‘Georgie, I’m not going back to Riseholme at all,’ she said. ‘I have sold the Hurst: Adele Brixton has bought it. And, practically, I’ve bought that white house with the beautiful garden, which we admired so much, and that view over the marsh (how I thought of you at sunset yesterday), and really charming rooms with character.’

Georgie sat open-mouthed, and all expression vanished from his face. It became as blank as a piece of sunburnt paper. Then slowly, as if he was coming round from an anaesthetic while the surgeon was still carving dexterously at living tissue, a look of intolerable anguish came into his face.

‘But Foljambe, Cadman!’ he cried. ‘Foljambe can’t come back here every night from Riseholme. What am I to do? Is it all irrevocable?’

Lucia bridled. She was quite aware that this parting (if there was to be one) between him and Foljambe would be a dagger; but it was surprising, to say the least, that the thought of the parting between herself and him should not have administered him the first shock. However, there it was. Foljambe first by all means.