‘It does sound silly,’ agreed Mrs Kerr. ‘It is silly, I think, to let oneself play, just because of one’s sense of absolute security, with even the most far-fetched idea of her doing anything so careful and mean. An idea,’ she said, shivering slightly, ‘has a curious power; it preys on one. Oh, you must promise me that you won’t,’ she cried. ‘It frightens me – you could send yourself mad!’

‘It’s nice of you to care,’ said Milton.

‘Do you think I don’t value my Sydney?’ she exclaimed and stared darkly at something, then brushed it away with her hand and smiled with a return of tranquillity. One’s idea of a person,’ she told him, ‘refuses to take certain possibilities, like a material refusing to take certain dyes. Don’t you feel so? For instance: for anyone else, any woman, as angry and hurt in her pride, and as disappointed as I’m afraid Sydney’s been with me lately, to have taken you up with the strong position you’ve given her would have been the inevitable, rather sordid, perhaps, but effective, complete little gesture. One would have looked for it, wouldn’t one? and – taking the thing at its own valuation – rather applauded. One can’t help applauding the score-off, the adequate pat little retaliation, all the more perhaps because, oneself, one could never achieve it. And we both of us know,’ said Mrs Kerr radiantly, ‘that for you it would never be possible either. And even supposing we didn’t, that we weren’t so exclusive on her behalf, hasn’t she given us proof?’

‘If it were needed,’ said Milton, and began chafing his hands together as though they were cold. He was silent a moment, staring down at the edge of her skirts, at the ground. He dragged himself back to consider something. ‘What did you, by the way, mean by a proof?’

‘But her loving you,’ exclaimed Mrs Kerr, wide-eyed, ‘her loving you absolutely! Mr Milton, do try and make her less hurt with me. Surely you can, can’t you? Make her happy enough to come back.’ Mrs Kerr, with her eyes and a gesture, gave herself away to him in perfect humility. ‘I do miss the child so!’

‘But how’m I to know she’s still hurt?’ her lover said dully, and looking at Mrs Kerr in remote admiration had a quick sense of being identified with Sydney.

‘Perhaps,’ said Mrs Kerr, recollecting Sydney’s change of position, ‘she’s not. But I was impatient and clumsy; I think she was hurt in her pride.’