It sounded ineffably silly, she knew, but without a quiver now, the remarks she made, she was humouring a child. Besides, she tried to persuade herself, we waste so much time on what we like to think subtleties of conversation. To attack anything that remained of an intellectual past lessened the shortcomings of the present. This was the attitude of Mrs Standish. It had to be.

But you’re not eating, he said.

I’m taking my time.

Sick? he asked.

No, she said. Why? I like to enjoy things slowly.

She looked straight at him, making it very meaningful. Then she gave him an intimate smile, that came out rather broody, transferred itself to the opposite face, and satisfied.

Sure, he said. Every man in his own way.

He looked at her thoughtfully. Because she was awful deep. Sometimes he wondered what she saw, tagging round with a bum like Collins, there was no telling, and a woman in love, sometimes he would have said crazy, he couldn’t hold her, and calling out. She excited him. Looking at her in the restaurant his mouth drooped open. All the things he’d never had, and wanted, seemed to put themselves in reach in the body of Catherine Standish. He could not possess her too quickly, in case they removed themselves again.

I’ve got the afternoon, he said. What about going back, eh?

She listened with a disturbed fascination to a proposition.

Well, she said, diffidently, there were one or two things –

Because there was still some show to be made.

Go on, he said. You don’t sound certain.

Perhaps for a little, she said. Perhaps for an hour or so.

Negotiated, she began to tremble, hoped that she didn’t show, uncertain, he said, when she could have screamed out: I have sat here half the morning, waiting, waiting, I have built so much on this moment of release.

In the taxi he took her hand and began to talk to her out of his limited vocabulary.

You’re swell, Kate, he said.

Inside the glove her hand burned. She had seldom experienced nerves in playing a part. The language, the pantomime of love had come to her easily, adapting itself to suit her men. Except now. The vulgarity, the cockiness did not cancel out the goodness, the kindness, the touching stupidity of Wally Collins. This made her feel her imposture.

Swell ? she said, knowing that in self-defence she would turn on the self-pity. For the moment. It’s always easy to discover virtues, not so easy to remain interested in them, she said.

Here now! he protested.

Yes, she said, looking away. One doesn’t last for ever, Wally. And I’m not as young as I was.

She waited anxiously for him to contradict. Playing her card, she regretted it. Putting ideas in his head. Sincerity often lodged perilously close to stupidity.

You might call it mature, she heard him say thoughtfully. Yes, he said. Mature.

As if he liked the sound. Une femme mûre. She had helped him stick the label on. This was the price of a conscience in love, when you couldn’t afford, when there was one capricious gust of passion between you and what amounted to ultimate extinction.