‘Yes, it was. After lunch they were bored, so they all went off on their own, and Veronica met Victor and they went off too. When they came back, quite a short time afterwards, the Lee-Mittisons had flitted – there wasn’t so much as an egg-shell. So they all halloed for a bit, and some of them lay down and went to sleep. Veronica and Victor came home on their own, and the others got tired of calling the Lee-Mittisons and came home too, thinking nothing more of it. Eileen likes the parson, do does Sydney; they say he is rather an ass but wonderfully sporting. They expected to find the L.-M.s at home, but the L.-M.s didn’t turn up till half-way through dinner, looking fearfully sick. Old L.-M. came over to father between the soup and fish, simply snorting. He said to father, “I suppose you realize what your daughter has been exposed to?” We think old L.-M. is quite mad. I was awfully glad I hadn’t gone.’

‘I should think you were,’ said Colonel Duperrier absently. He wanted to ask her: ‘Couldn’t we go off some day for a walk in the hills?’ He tried this over and over in his head, but it didn’t sound right somehow. He supposed that the suggestion must be unsuitable, and that at all events she would be bored with him.

As if to settle the matter once and for all, Joan said, with an unhappy note in her voice as she thought of the meeting of Veronica and Victor, ‘And anyway, I’m not much of a walker. I don’t care for walking at all.’

8

In the Drawing-Room

AFTER COLONEL DUPERRIER HAD left the drawing-room the ladies round the fire folded back their skirts over their knees again to keep the stuff from scorching, drew their chairs in closer and resumed their discussion of Mrs Kerr. Their backs were turned in a kind of contempt on three tall windows through which cold light from the sky and the sea poured in on them gravely.

‘I cannot think,’ said one, ‘what a woman of that sort finds to do with herself.’ She spoke with emphasis, this remark had been throughout a recurring-point in the conversation. ‘She has no interests. She hasn’t a large correspondence, she does nothing at all for herself. I personally find the day so very full here, it seems only too short.’

‘I wouldn’t say too short. But as days abroad go, one seems to get through them quickly enough.’ To this there was a hum of agreement.