‘Will you put them in water?’ she said, having looked at the flowers with wistful delight for a moment or two, and Sydney, with a feeling of surprise that she could not explain to herself, glanced round her, then began to arrange the carnations. She chose for the purpose a rather self-conscious-looking pottery mug that had been a present from Miss Pym. She arranged the flowers deliberately, and Mrs Kerr looked on in expressive silence.

‘Pleased?’ said Sydney.

‘Very, very much. I had been feeling like that: it was uncanny of you. Now they are perfect, Sydney; leave them alone and don’t keep fussing round them.’

‘That was because I want them to look nice all round. I’m not restless.’

‘No?’ said Mrs Kerr, revolving critically a possible new version of friend which she seemed slowly to accept.

‘No, I am not. I have a capacity for being still that, left to myself, I would never have doubted, but that no one else, you specially, will ever let me believe in. Look ——’ She knelt down where she stood, then sat back and arranged herself, leaning her side and elbow against the side of the sofa. ‘I could stay like this for the rest of the afternoon,’ said Sydney.

‘Well, then stay still. Why should I disturb you?’

‘You will, you are bound to – just now. Where did you think I had gone?’

‘I was not allowed to think. I went out there and looked over the balcony, and that clergyman, that Mr Milton, was walking about in the garden. He took off his hat and waved it to attract my attention. Then he began to talk for some time in the friendliest way.’

‘Really? That was excessive of him. What did he say?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Kerr. ‘I couldn’t hear. I just smiled and nodded. He is a cheerful, un-self-conscious person. I like him.’

‘Un-self-conscious? He feels spikes everywhere and rushes to impale himself. But I feel an interest in him; he told Veronica Lawrence he admired me.’

‘Very appealing of him. And so wise.’

‘Wise – to tell?’

‘No – to admire. Have many people, Sydney?’

Sydney flung round at her, startled into a brilliant flush. ‘I don’t know: I’ve never been sure of it.’

‘Never mind,’ said Mrs Kerr, staring out at her friend from some profound reverie; ‘when you look like that, the question answers itself.’

‘I suppose,’ said Sydney after an instant’s reflection, ‘that extraordinary people do. Cordelia Barry – or did you only mean men?’

‘No, I didn’t only mean men. Don’t be so fearfully on the defensive – or do you think I am likely to match-make?’