‘ – a lucky girl you are,’ Tessa was remarking, ‘to be able to walk about like that in the sun without burning your face … We’re to have an asparagus omelette, Sydney: you know, “à l’asperge”. We might come on down, if you’re ready: they bring in the omelettes at once, you know, and it really isn’t fair to the waiters …’

Very few people cared as much as this about being fair to the waiters; the rest came trickling into the dining-room gradually, by twos and threes. The table Tessa had secured for herself was in a good position, near the door but not too far away from the window. By turning her head a little Sydney could feel the cool air on her face, and see, under the awning, palm-fronds rising up from the garden below, an orange tree in fruit and the roofs of the town behind it, vivid against the sea. Mrs Kerr’s table was off to the right at such an angle that, from where they sat, without being too much observed, Sydney was able to watch it. It was generally empty the longest of all. Behind Tessa the double doors were spread wide in an hospitable gesture, like the hands of a maître d’hôtel. Beyond, down the long perspective to the foot of the stairs, one could see visitors take form with blank faces, then compose and poise themselves for an entrance. Some who thought punctuality rather suburban would gaze into the unfilled immensity of the room for a moment, then vanish repelled. Others would advance swimmingly and talk from table to table across the emptiness, familiarly, like a party of pioneers. Men came in without their wives and did not always look up when these entered. Women appearing before their husbands remained alert, gazed into an opposite space resentfully, and ate with an air of temporizing off the tips of their forks. When the husbands did come in it seemed a long time before there was something to say. It seemed odder than ever to Sydney, eyeing these couples, that men and women should be expected to pair off for life.