The father leant forward to say something that didn’t come. His hand opened and fastened. He was embarrassed by his sons. And she couldn’t help him, Kitty knew, they were clinging to opposite shores, even though floating in the same sea. A sea of red damask, and silver, and dissolving firelight. She was suddenly appalled, as if she were going to scream. She almost wanted to scream, to see if a drooping and averted lid would fly upward, surprised, and uncover the hatred in a cold eye.

Clearing his throat, sighing, the Colonel prepared the moment for his disapproval.

Discipline, he was saying, is the mainspring of our educational system. The public school. Forget about discipline, said the Colonel, and you’ll find yourself with socialism on your hands.

Mrs Standish felt, was it a draught, or the first shiver of approaching danger.

Oh Lord, sighed Willy.

What’s that? asked the Colonel.

There’s always the Army, said Willy.

An elder brother laughed down his nose.

Ignoring the remarks of renegades, the Colonel stroked his chest for an imaginary crumb.

The educational system, said the Colonel, stands or falls by discipline. Don’t you agree, Miss Goose ?

They were waiting, the whole room, pressing in, the wall, the face, the silence politely discouraging. And then she wanted, she had to throw the stone she had held so many hours in her muff, hidden in the clenched and anxious hand, the body rigid in its isolation.

I’m hardly in a position, she said, and she was surprised the way her voice took possession of the room, the way her eye caught, she hoped, the flicker of an eyelid: I can hardly say. The only experience I have comes from the elementary schools.

Oh, said the Colonel. The elementary schools.

Yes, she said. I teach, you know, in the school at Little Swaffham.

Oh, said the Colonel. That’s interesting.

In focus, the room seemed smaller. But her throat was dry.

What a pity it’s dark, Oliver, said Mrs Standish. You might have shown Miss Goose the daffodils.

Her husband moved his lips unhappily. It was months before daffodils. Rather than increase confusion, he preferred silence.

Any bulwark that conversation built now was threatened by destruction. The mood was silence. And soon it was time for the insincerities of leaving, these reduced to a formula by Mrs Standish, because she was not pleased, because she had no desire to repeat her experience of this girl, now gathering her cheap furs, and no doubt preening herself on the second bargain she had found in Willy. Mrs Standish, surrounded by her room, looked at the fragments on her tea table. She left it to her men to take unpleasantries off her hands. It was enough to cope with what she imagined was an assault upon her dignity. She stood in the firelight and contemplated a left-over slice of bread and butter.

Mr Standish came out as far as the steps. Willy was helping the girl to get into the dog-cart. Mr Standish hoped, diffidently, that he would soon see her again. But he did not sound as if he thought he would.