Where was she? What had she been going to say? This was the way that she and Emily talked all day long, climbing the hills or sitting among those warm rocks that fringe the Mediterranean. They drew in each other’s ideas and gave out their own by a gentle process, like breathing. They had pinned down the most slippery, ethical subtleties for absorbing, tireless analysis. Everything they said to each other was so true. Now this was all becoming nonsense, futile in the ears of Miss Pym. Her waves came back bewildered, broken against something. She could not endure the ordeal of this gracious listening. Was Mrs Kerr like this when Sydney Warren talked?

She drew a desperate breath and continued: ‘As I say, to the Straightforward Person – and I think, you know, that the more one is that the more one is bound to admit to oneself that one is a Hedonist, and that it is better not to fight or to drive oneself, but to lead and develop ——’

‘Ah yes,’ said Mrs Kerr, ‘I think you are so right. One’s first duty is, I’m sure, to be warm. Other people may pose about their reasons for not coming abroad, but you and I are much wiser.’

The road ran straight ahead of them, parallel with the coast and planted with two regular lines of chestnut trees. To the right the hills rose up with their climbing villas; to the left the town with its gardens crowded down to the sea. As Miss Pym walked on, distressed but concentrated, confessing herself a Hedonist, Mrs Kerr touched her lightly on the arm and said, ‘No, look; this way. We’re missing the turn to the tennis club!’ She kept a hand on Miss Pym’s sleeve for a moment longer and guided her gently. Their path struck off at a right angle between high garden walls, a funnel of sunshine so narrow that two could not walk abreast. Miss Pym, elated, deprecating, plunged down it ahead of her companion, who had to pause for a moment to disentangle her parasol from a long spray of creeper that swung down over a wall. Miss Pym felt the heat on her thin back as she hurried crabwise, incoherently talking, but she did not dare to put up her parasol, because parasols are so awkward when one is nervous, and how should she feel if she poked Mrs Kerr in the eye?