Julia’s an old stuffpot, she said.

But there was the raspberry jam, and buttering the pikelet, it was Friday afternoon in the kitchen, and don’t tell Mrs Mac, said Julia, her hand was red with raspberry jam. Sitting in the darkness Eden felt the worm of misery raise its head. It rose and swayed its head in her stomach, as if her whole affection for Julia were rooted in that part of her body. All her misery and love came definitely from the pit of her stomach.

She got out of bed. She went across the passage. She wanted to hear her own voice.

Elyot? she whispered, pushing the door.

Yes? he asked across the darkness.

I did it, she said.

That made her feel better.

I wouldn’t have her in my bed, I wouldn’t sleep with that Connie Tiarks.

Yes, he murmured. I heard.

He could feel her sitting on the end of his bed. Again they felt very close, in the darkness, their whispers, their breath.

She’s pretty feeble, Eden said.

She had begun to shiver. It translated itself openly to her voice. But she had to listen to this, to her reassurance. It was also good to touch the eiderdown on Elyot’s bed.

You’d better go back, he said.

Yes, she shivered. I suppose.

He could hear her feet.

Isn’t it awful! she said.

What? he asked, drowsily.

That girl. And those white bows. We shall have her about for ages, she said.

Her voice clung on, lapsed across the passage, drifted into darkness.

The house had been tensed ever since the arrival of Connie Tiarks. It got right under your skin, a feeling of hostility and expectation. So you waited. You appreciated the climax in Eden’s room, the sounds across the passage that you sat up to hear better, propped on an arm. It made you restless. It was like the War. This had become the faces of Mr and Mrs Macarthy at the breakfast table, after the morning papers. You watched and you felt it coming on, the restlessness, you went outside and wandered up and down among the currant bushes in the back garden, till Mr Macarthy called round the corner and it was time to do arithmetic. Above the back garden the sky was either blue and oppressive, the heavy, blue and white summer sky like bulged washing over your head, or the thin, grey, untouchable sky of winter, each of them equally disturbing. You just had to walk up and down, while your breath came out in a hum of exasperation, and the palms of your hands were feverish.

He told himself he was Elyot Standish. It was unconvincing at such times. Or lying in the dark house, waiting for the unexpected to happen, that never did, that never would. But he lay and listened. He heard a mouse squeak, then the long, unfurling sound of somebody’s snore. He wondered a bit about Connie Tiarks, who would look pale and grublike, no doubt, undressed in the dining-room. His mind slid over this, like the nude female statues in the book on Greek sculpture that Mr Macarthy had. Eden laughed, standing naked in the bath, or running across the hot linoleum in summer. She was either unconscious of herself without clothes, or else unashamedly interested. But his body had begun to make him ashamed. He was determined to hide himself, from Julia, from Eden, though to himself he became an object of passing and furtive contemplation.