“Shut up, I said.”

Two Whitehall lines had crossed, he concluded, and waited for the speakers to sort themselves out. Nothing happened. He felt himself hoisted into a sitting position, his support being soft yet curiously uneven. He opened his eyes. He was in a small dark cabin. In the corner of the far side a pale face was suspended in gloom, like an old tenth-rate painting in an historic mansion. He stared at it in silence for a while.

“The portrait of a blinking idiot,” he said finally, and closed his eyes.

He was woken by cold air blowing on his face, and knew at once that he was much better. He moved his head experimentally; although it still ached, it was clear. He didn’t feel at all sick. For that he supposed he had to thank the ministrations of Wacey, which, however unorthodox, seemed effective. Hesitating between the conjugations of ministro and efficio, he opened his eyes.

Wacey was sitting opposite, looking not exactly at him, but vaguely round about his ears, with the uneasy ambience of an old lag.

“Better?” he muttered.

Brett nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

He had no fear that Wacey would not extract from these two words the last dram of significance. Without further verbal clarification he had understood the nature of Wacey’s solicitude. It was an insurance policy taken out against the obviously not far distant hour of reckoning. No doubt he hoped Brett would remember to credit him with the instalments of brandy and snow. And indeed, he would.

Conscious of a certain strength in his weakness, Brett looked out of the open window. Open—Wacey was laying out really heavily.

They were driving at fair speed along a reasonably wide but unlit road. No snow was falling, although it lay thick on verge and hedges. The major hindrance to traffic which had threatened appeared not to have developed. Brett remembered bitterly the drift in the lane to Pettinge. But that had been in a tiny side road; and if he hadn’t pulled to the left he still might have been—

The phrase warned him that any line of thought which followed would be quite futile. If in the circumstances he could do nothing but speculate, he must at least speculate on the future; on where, for instance, he was being driven in this large square car. The second car—naturally he hadn’t been able to see the lights, as he was being carried back towards them. The second car. She had said only one passed—but why was he still rashly giving consideration and credence to her? He shut his eyes quickly. The only certainty of his awakening was that she had made a fool of him. He wished he had stayed in the hazy world of the nursery, the Bavarian Alps and tricky conjugations.