“All right. But remember I’ll wait half an hour.”

She opened the door and he went out. They had not touched each other since they knelt at the sofa. They were waiting.

Joanna shut the door, and for a moment stood suspended, uncertain. Her pulses raced and her brain was working swiftly. She was afraid to follow Bob at once. From the outside the front door could only be shut with a bang, and she knew her mother would run out at the sound, and standing on the steps would call to ask her where she was going. That, she could not have borne. But she feared still more to go into the parlour or upstairs, lest her return to the lobby should be somehow prevented. So she hovered in the dim hall, resting on tiptoe ready for flight. She listened with sharpened hearing to the sounds in the house. She ought to go and change her thin slippers, but Mabel was still in the bedroom. Joanna could hear her moving, though she was two floors distant. Scarcely half a minute had passed, but in despair she was sure Bob must be tired of waiting. He would be gone. He would think she didn’t care. It was terrible.

Half frantic, she pulled on a blue woollen tammy which was on the hatstand and threw a short old tweed cape round her shoulders. Then passing the bottom of the stairs, and slipping quiet as a shadow down the long tiled passage, she looked into the parlour.

Juley was there, standing burdened by the table. With one uncomfortable hand she clutched some little flower-glasses which needed fresh water, with the other she held up a newspaper. Something on the printed page had caught her eye just as she was leaving the room, but not for the world would she relinquish duty for enjoyment. It was like her thus to tax self-indulgence with physical discomfort.

“Mother, I’m running to the post. I’ll be back in a minute,” Joanna rattled out the old, old formula in a colourless voice, and was off, not waiting for an answer. Before her mother had taken in her words, she had fled the house. She went the length of Collessie Street like the wind. Then feeling safe she made her way more slowly towards the place where Bob would be waiting.

III