The Dutchman was killed one morning while flying alone, a few days before the experts came. An elementary piece of carelessness on the part of one of the mechanics. A strut broke in mid-air. The machine side-slipped and was burnt to a tangle of wires within a few minutes of striking the ground. All that Edward could do was to make an idiotic plunge into the flames, attempting to reach the pilot’s seat. They barely rescued him alive.

“I’m going to carry on,” he told Margaret two months later, when he came out of hospital.

“I only wish I could help you more,” she said.

But it was not so simple. There was a legal difficulty, it seemed, as to the ownership of the plans. Edward, of course, had made no business arrangement. Some relatives arrived from Amsterdam and carried them off. Edward raved for a week, talked of going to law, wrote furious letters. Margaret made no comment. They both knew that he could do nothing.

*   *   *

A month later, and he was out of Europe. His first destination was Damascus, but he could rest nowhere. Kerkuk, Suliemaniyeh, Halabja. He shot in the mountains. Paid a visit to Sheikh Mahmoud in his cave. In Halabja he nearly died. He had blood-poisoning in the left hand and arm.

When he got back, late that autumn, to London, he told Margaret:

“I’m getting old. That was the last time. I shan’t run away again.”

*   *   *

One should never say such things. Next summer, in Paris, he’d met Mitka.

A month passed. On the impulse, he wrote one day to Margaret, who was still at the villa. She must come up and visit them. Rather disconcertingly, she answered that she would.

Edward had found a studio in the Rue Lepic. Margaret admired it, smiling, while he made tea.

“You’ve no right to a place like this, my dear,” she said.

Edward answered that he’d have to take up sculpture to justify his existence. They spoke French. Margaret had tactfully started it. But Mitka wouldn’t be drawn into saying a word. He just sat, watching them, and occasionally—with a furtive movement—pushing the lock of fair hair away from his eyes. Her faintly amused smile explored everything. She asked:

“Who mends your socks?” and

“Which of you gets the breakfast?”

At last Edward couldn’t stand it any longer. He packed Mitka off brusquely to the cinema, with twenty francs. And Margaret looked on at this little performance, smiling.

They were alone. Staring out of the window, frowning, with his hands in his pockets, Edward asked abruptly:

“Well?”

“Well what, my dear?”

Edward’s frown tightened.

“What do you think of him?”

“I think he’s charming,” said Margaret sweetly.

It was just beginning to rain. Edward turned wearily from the wet pane, crossed the room slowly, sat down on the divan:

“I suppose I was a fool to have asked you here.”