Next morning Joanna woke very early, yet feeling unusually refreshed. She was conscious of an exquisite calm, and had a vision, crystal-clear and unshaken, of existence. All difficulties fell from her. She knew now as if it were written on her bedroom wall that she would be Mario’s wife, and would go away with him to Italy. Already she had shed her life in Glasgow like a husk – had it happened in sleep? Before her now lay the new life, and she set her face towards it freed. She was done with questioning. Everything was beautifully simple. Mario needed her: no one else did. It was wonderful to be needed by this dark, exigent man with the curious beauty that took her breath away. Everything could be left to him. She had only to hold out her hands – to give. Splendid, giving to anyone who wanted what you had with such blazing eagerness. She would think no more about Bob. He had failed her, or she had failed him. Which, she might never know. Thinking of Bob, she seemed to see his face drowned in tears. There was a fountain of tears in her for Bob, or for herself in connection with Bob. That must be sealed up. There were no tears in her for Mario. This was a thought that gave strength. Mario might frighten her. He would never be able to hurt her, as Bob had hurt her – as Bob was hurting her even now. It was through her dreams that Bob hurt her. About Mario she had no dreams. He was her escape into reality.

Resting there in bed, lapped by the silken warmth of her half-awakened body, she wondered why Mario, who wanted her so much more than ever Bob had wanted her, should estimate her so much lower. Bob had admired her drawing, her clothes, and the way she did her hair. But Mario –

She recalled the first time she had taken him to her studio. How he had poured scorn on her drawing, reminding her in his denunciations of Nilsson, the Swedish master of design at the Art School, who was the only teacher for whom she had even attempted to work during this last term.

“You draw with your head alone,” Mario had said. “One must draw with one’s heart, one’s blood.” And in quick boredom he had turned from her work to the pair of old wine glasses from which, eight months before, Bob and she had drunk their betrothal champagne.