Then, in Athens, she suddenly grew bored, and it occurred to her to return to her native city, to bask in the glory of achievement.

So it was settled. She was packed. And although she was sick to death of being driven through the dust to make conversation with other tourists on historic sites, she did, to pass the time, by herself, take the dreadful ordinary bus along the coast, that last afternoon, and got down just anywhere to stroll amongst the scrubby pines. In her white, rather heavy dress. Which accentuated her substantial figure, and intensified the impression that here was a statue in motion.

Mrs Mortlock strolled, and the stones were intolerable to her stilted heels. Lightly she touched the trunks of the pines. She frowned slightly to find that some of the white milk had oozed out onto her fingers, and probably the dirty, sticky stuff would refuse to come off.

However, the light washed her, and the sea rose up at her feet, and higher, so that she was forced to sit down on a rock. She was so dazzled by Saronic blue that she did not at first notice the four children. Then – there they were. Playing, or just being. She had never really had cause to study the habits of children, unless the aged ones.

‘Arr, go on! Cut it out!’ ordered the eldest, an already leggy boy, slapping down his younger sister, who had mixed sea with some of the dust, to make a mud, with which to anoint her round, brown, serious face. ‘You’ve mucked yourself up enough!’

The little girl began to cry.

There was something, but something, about the voices. Then Mrs Mortlock realized she was understanding every word. She was understanding the drawn-out, monotonously convinced, yes, the Australian voices. She became so excited.

‘Oh,’ she cried, she almost ran, ‘where are you from?’

The little girl had stopped crying. All the children looked shocked.

Then an elder girl toyed with one of her plaits, and answered.

‘From the States,’ she said.

But her elder brother, who had intended to have no truck with the strange, wealthy-seeming woman, was compelled to tell the truth.

‘That’s only because Dad was working there,’ he said, quite angry. ‘We’re Australians,’ the boy proclaimed aggressively.

‘How interesting that we should all meet like this. Beside the sea,’ she blurted anxiously, not to say ridiculously, and in spite of the fact that she could tell from the children’s faces it would be of minor interest. Embarrassing was perhaps the word.

But Mrs Mortlock was too shaken to be able to organize her remarks. She was obsessed by the boy’s eyelids, and the mouth, not yet conscious of an inherited sensuality. She knew now.

‘She was born in America, wasn’t she?’ Mrs Mortlock asked, touching the hair of the smaller girl.

‘Yes,’ they said, suspiciously, quivering on stiffened necks.

‘Because I had been told, earlier on, there were only three.’

The peculiar woman, vague with thought, might have been terrifying for the children if the light had not driven any look of evil out of the bosom of her white dress. As it was, she had strayed out of some other category, of divinities and statues.