Martyn didn’t want to look at Gay Gainsford but was unable altogether to avoid doing so. Miss Gainsford sat, at first alone, on a smallish sofa. She seemed to have herself tolerably well in hand but her eyes were restless and her fingers plaited and replaited the folds of her dress. Bennington watched her from a distance until he had done with his towel. Then he crossed the stage and sat beside her, taking one of the restless hands in his. He looked hard at Martyn who was visited painfully by a feeling of great compassion for both of them and by a sensation of remorse. She had a notion, which she tried to dismiss as fantastic, that Poole sensed this reaction. His glance rested for a moment on her and she thought: ‘This is getting too complicated. It’s going to be too much for me.’ She made an involuntary movement and at once Miss Hamilton put out a hand to the glass.

When Poole had dealt with the first act he turned to Dr Rutherford who had sat throughout with his legs extended and his chin on his chest, directing from under his brows a glare of extreme malevolence at the entire cast.

‘Anything to add to that, John?’ Poole asked.

‘Apart from a passing observation that I regard the whole thing as a tour de force of understatement and with reservations that I keep to myself—’ Here Dr Rutherford looked fixedly at Parry Percival. ‘I am mum. I reserve my fire.’

‘Act Two, then,’ said Poole and began again.

Martyn became aware after a few minutes that Dr Rutherford, like Bennington, was staring at her. She was as horribly fascinated as birds are said to be by the unwinking gaze of a snake. Do what she could to look elsewhere about the stage, she must after a time steal a glance at him only to meet his speculative and bloodshot regard. This alarmed her profoundly. She was persuaded that a feeling of tension had been communicated to the others and that they, too, were aware of some kind of impending crisis. This feeling grew in intensity as Poole’s voice went steadily on with his notes. He had got about half-way through the second act when Dr Rutherford ejaculated, ‘Hi! Wait a bit!’ and began a frenzied search through his own notes which seemed to be in complete disorder. Finally he pounced on a sheet of paper, dragged out a pair of spectacles and, with a hand raised to enjoin silence, read it to himself with strange noises in his breathing. Having scattered the rest of his notes over his person and the floor he now folded this particular sheet and sat on it.