That afternoon he’d lain watching her as she stood before the easel. She worked rapidly and decisively, dabbing at the canvas with a sort of triumph, half-smiling to herself. He knew that she liked him to lie near her, on the verandah or under the tree. If he went away by himself, down into the town or across the headland to Pampelonne, he’d find, when he returned, that she’d done scarcely any work. She missed her pet cat.

Yet she was always urging him to make little expeditions. To be independent.

“I believe old Morel is taking his car into St. Rafael to-morrow. Would you care to go?”

“Not particularly. Are you going?”

“Oh, I shall be working.”

“You want to get rid of me.”

She laughed: “My dear, you know I don’t.”

“Then come, too.”

“Of course I’ll come—if you want me.”

“Why shouldn’t I want you?”

So they stayed at home.

Sometimes Edward felt she’d be quite pleased if he came home drunk. She wanted him to be naughty. She encouraged his evenings out. So Edward dutifully strolled down to the little port with its picturesque fishing-boats, its three cafés and its brothel, which boasted an extremely antique and well-worn indecent film. Sometimes he sat up three-quarters of the night chatting to the painters or playing cards. The thin, delicate, staccato Frenchmen fiddling nervously with their cigarettes, winding themselves up slowly like springs while the others talked, then pouncing into a half second’s opening in the conversation with their: “Je suppose que…” The small, untidy, worried-looking Spaniards, sombre and tragic, yet somehow like hairdressers. The large, lazy Russians with many wives. Scarcely a single Englishman. For that Edward was grateful. Yet he was bored. His boredom was like a nostalgia for the whole world. He was homesick for everywhere but here.

When he spent his evenings up at the villa, Margaret and he sat together on the verandah. They read to each other aloud. Or played poker-patience with two little travelling cases which had pockets for the cards. At twelve o’clock it was bedtime. They kissed:

“Good-night, my dear.”

Margaret and Thérèse did all the housework. Edward wanted to help, but she wouldn’t let him.

“The women must work and the men must sleep,” he said.

She only laughed with her quiet, disconcerting triumph. At times it really angered him. It was like being patted on the top of the head.