‘So it did seem to me,’ said Mrs Kerr, also looking slightly bewildered, as though by all these questions Sydney were confusing the issue.

‘Did you think you had helped us?’

‘Only by … valuing both of you.’

‘I suppose,’ said Sydney, struck by this, ‘you do in a kind of way value us?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Kerr, ‘and I’ve missed you very much. When I had to throw away your carnations this morning I was sorry; I didn’t a bit want to.’

‘Only this morning? Carnations do last a long time,’ said Sydney, and considered the phenomenon gravely. ‘One didn’t want to intrude, you see,’ she added.

‘Intrude?’ said Mrs Kerr, repeating the rather middle-class word wonderingly. Her gentle, mystified air was not sympathetic. ‘I think,’ she said slowly, as though trying how best to express herself to an almost strange young woman, the school friend, as it might be, of a daughter, ‘that you’ve been a little … over-important about it, perhaps, haven’t you? I mean, how could your coming or not coming make any difference between me and Ronald? He would have been pleased, he was ready to be friendly; he knows just what you’ve been to me, and in his own tied-up sort of way he is ever so grateful. He likes me to have friends wherever I am. I don’t think,’ she concluded, with a smile of pity for the girl’s inevitable incomprehension, ‘that anybody could put things wrong between me and Ronald.’

‘In fact, one seems to have taken too much for granted. Funny!’ said Sydney and laughed.

‘Oh, Sydney dear no. Why? Don’t be so bitter.’

‘Why bitter? I see how tiresome a girl can be.’

‘Never tiresome; you’ve been charming; more than unselfish – giving up so much of your time to me, giving me so much – I’ve accepted too much, I’m afraid.’ Mrs Kerr broke off with compunction.

‘Why reproach yourself? Don’t you find all your freinds are the same?’

Mrs Kerr sighed and looked down at her hands, allowing this to pass for an admission. With a smile of particular ruefulness that drew up the eyebrows tragically and brought the face to its fullest, profoundest expression of all of her, she confessed: ‘But in your case I’ve been specially guilty. I begin now to guess you’ve expected much more of me, and that I’ve been taking and taking without so much as a glance ahead or a single suspicion of what you would want to have back. I’m afraid we’ve gone wrong through your not quite understanding. You see, I’m so fond of you, but——’

‘But?’