‘One would be sorry to make use of one’s religion as an outlet for anything.’

She retracted. ‘The psychologists have led one so astray.’

‘The fallacy’s older than they are.’

‘I suppose so,’ agreed Mrs Kerr. She went on with an effort, going against, obviously, all the fine instincts she had for reserve. ‘You have felt, I dare say, that force of – of religion in Sydney. I’ve had to draw back there, because I don’t, as you see, understand. One never would hold her, lacking that.’

‘I don’t see her ever as a person to be absolutely held.’

She was moved by a deep-down amazement, caught a breath as though she must have misheard him and lifted her eyebrows. ‘Not held? You forget,’ she said, ‘I’ve been her friend.’ She reflected: ‘Does new power bring with it, perhaps, its own disabilities? You are, aren’t you, quite newly her lover? You mayn’t see yet, may not admit intellectually, but you must surely feel that.’

‘You don’t think I quite understand what I’ve got.’

‘I don’t think you can trust yourself yet to look down very deep. But you ought – she is yours; absolutely. We have all of us fallen away.’ There was not a note in her voice of anything but triumph; she smiled at him like a priestess.

‘You feel I need to he told this?’ he said, and felt his own smile twist his face awkwardly.

‘There is no need,’ she said with a penetrating, long look. ‘You do know.’ He felt again, through that window behind her, that dark garden distressed by the wind; around her those undisturbed shadows, that never-ebbing, mild light.

‘Suppose,’ he began uneasily, ‘suppose I were less fortunate. Suppose – you see, I am secure enough to indulge myself with these curiosities – she had simply caught at my hand, were gripping it desperately because she was frightened, or had been misdirected, say, and lost her way – I would be right, knowing that, to keep hold of her, for her protection?’

‘ – A protection!’ interposed Mrs Kerr, ‘that you think with most innocent cynicism she would be capable of accepting? But go on, please, I won’t interrupt you.’

‘That was all.’ He laughed. ‘Vague curiosity. Should I be right?’

‘If you cared to be just a convenience,’ said Mrs Kerr thoughtfully, ‘it wouldn’t be wrong. But can you believe she’d – make use of you? Would it be, in the most ordinary woman, pretty or admirable? Could you reconcile that with the only Sydney possible for either of us? For our two Sydneys, I’m sure, are the same.’

‘But there’s panic …’

‘Panic doesn’t last more than its moment. Of course, there’s opportunism.’ She caught Milton looking at her haggardly. ‘You didn’t think,’ she said gently, ‘that I thought you meant that?’

He gave, to express scorn, a rather ghastly little monosyllabic laugh.