Sydney, who was still near enough to her own childhood to mistrust children profoundly, wondered what Cordelia could be getting at. ‘Not today,’ she temporized; ‘some day, perhaps.’

‘Come on, Cordelia!’

‘Go on, Cordelia; Nanny’s calling.’

‘She’s no Nanny to me,’ said Cordelia in bitter repudiation. ‘Veronica Lawrence is very fond of children,’ she added rapidly. ‘She said she’d take me for a walk any day. But I’m not so much interested in Veronica Lawrence.’

‘Then you’re an ungrateful little wretch,’ said Sydney. ‘Run along!’

‘Do you promise, some day?’ said the child despairingly.

‘Very well, I promise.’

After another long stare that was at once ardent and sardonic, Cordelia, with reluctant steps and backward glances, went after her family. Sydney heard her calling Nanny a devil. But so long as Cordelia came on, Nanny, who was a broken woman, cared for none of these things.

Sydney, who knew that Mrs Kerr was all this time sitting on her balcony, never more accessible than today, in a mood which the carnations were soon to reflect, still delayed luxuriously. She heightened the sweetness of exile by telling herself how soon the freshness of her carnations would be over, and how at any moment Mrs Kerr might fall asleep for the afternoon, or get up and go out with somebody else. She even played with a regret at having packed off Cordelia, with whom she might have walked back still more slowly through the town.

When she did at last return to the Hotel the afternoon post had just come in and was spread out on the concierge’s table. There was nothing for herself, but a letter for Mrs Kerr in Ronald’s large untidy writing caught her eye. She hesitated for a moment over this for she had not yet directly tried conclusions with Ronald; then, very confident of her balance, took the letter up with her and tapped lightly with the corner of the envelope on Mrs Kerr’s door.

Sydney knew at once from her friend’s conscious air and rather marked immobility that she had been expected. The carnations, into which virtue seemed to have gone out of herself, were at this anticipated moment difficult to relinquish. She laid them down with a degree of awkwardness across the end of the sofa. Mrs Kerr, who sat with her feet up, looking out at the sea, exclaimed: ‘Carnations!’ incredulously, as though this were what she had been longing for, and with an unprecedented movement held up her face to be kissed.