Ronald had hoped nothing; he had not wished to accompany her. They misunderstood one another (though she didn’t suspect this); she had marked him down from the first as being of that delightful age which expects to be taken seriously and which to one’s ardent gravity will make shy, delicious dislosures. Ronald preferred in any encounter with women of a no longer redeemable age that might be forced on him to retreat behind an impassible whimsicality which amounted to archness. Thus there had been a conflict in their methods of approach, the equal determinations of each of them to ‘take’ the other rather than ‘be taken’. She had plumped down beside him that morning with her invitation at an instant of such crisis in his thoughts that he could have murdered her for the interruption. In Germany he had found he could not think; there had been too much time, some element of condensation had been lacking; here there had been nothing but a series of agonizing ruptures; the very fact of sitting down alone on bench or sofa seemed to be provocative, and Ronald could not think properly standing up. ‘Your mother,’ she had begun, ‘wanted me to ask you if you’d come with us to the Russian Villa – I have been lent the key. She is sure you will be delighted with it.’ There had been nothing left for Ronald to say.

A number of disappearing pathways darted off from the avenue; Corinthian pillars suggested themselves through a net of undergrowth, and the arch of a stone bridge let one suppose water. The party hung fire, embarrassed by this choice of attractions, then continued to move slowly up the avenue in a close formation. This was more than a villa, it was a country-house, with, for the moment, nothing but the distinct shadows and an irregular splash of water to give away its foreignness. Then Miss Fitzgerald caught Ronald by the arm and pulled him sideways, pointing excitedly as though they were to surprise some living thing. ‘Look,’ she cried, ‘up there – the Villa!’ They all had a glimpse of it and were repelled, forty supercilious white windows, blankly shuttered, a vacillating shabbiness across its grey face that was neither old nor new. It had a solidity that was not local, an assured air of having been finally answered for; but it was as disappointing as one’s first princess.

‘Of course it isn’t like a cinquecento villa,’ said Miss Pym, anxious to make all allowances.