She approached the tennis courts and heard the cries, the ping of the balls, and saw the shining, darting figures and the shaded balconies of the pavilion. Miss Pym felt behind her a drawing away of Mrs Kerr and knew that she was now to be abandoned. Mrs Kerr was looking through the wire netting; her eyes went from court to court, then turned dissatisfied to question the pavilion, then the benches underneath the wall where players sat in groups or couples, waiting for their courts. She watched these benches for some time, and Miss Pym watched her.

‘Well, it’s been so nice …’ said Mrs Kerr. Her voice trailed off into a valedictory murmur. It had been so nice … Miss Pym could never have brought herself near the tennis courts: she was shy of all the people; she would never have come along. They wore blazing, immaculate white, and bright woolly wraps huddled round them professionally. The quality of their hard, cool stare of indifference yet so penetrating was enhanced for Miss Pym by the glare of the courts, the air charged with sunshine, the treelessness, a kind of positiveness everywhere. She had a sense, so acute from her own ill-health as to become intolerable, of the stored-up, schooled, directed energy in all these fine bodies. She turned in a panic, abruptly, upon Mrs Kerr. ‘I’ll be going back,’ she said. ‘I——’

The other stood still by the turnstile. Her eyes now rested in passivity, as after a homecoming, on a face they had discovered.

‘I’ll be going back …’ Yes, it was Miss Warren who, over there with a scarlet handkerchief bound round her head, had been galvanized by awareness, half-risen, and remained staring towards them across the courts. Miss Pym spoke again, louder, but Mrs Kerr, who was passing through the turnstile, gave no sign of attention. Only when Miss Pym was half-way up the path in retreat did Mrs Kerr recollect her companion and, turning, make some vague gesture, some unheard sound, of farewell.

2

Sydney

‘BUT THEY TOLD me you had come on down!’ cried Sydney Warren. Slipping along the wall, at the edge of the courts, she gained the pavilion and the back upper bench where Mrs Kerr had seated herself. Mrs Kerr smiled and looked leisurely round her. From these high seats one had an excellent view of the courts and could hardly be seen from them, sitting far back in the shadow. At one’s feet a packed row of spectators leant forward into the sun.

‘I waited for nearly an hour,’ said Sydney. ‘And Colonel Duperrier swore he had seen you go down. I couldn’t make it out, but I came. If I’d ever imagined——’

‘It never occurred to me you would wait. It would have been dreadfully silly. And, anyhow, it was nice to walk down with Colonel Duperrier.’ (Sydney repudiated Colonel Duperrier with a grimace.) ‘I walked down with Miss Pym,’ Mrs Kerr said contentedly.