The worst moments were his proposals. That was really the most exquisite misery. She suffered for him—pins and needles, daggers. While he explained his prospects. Gerald didn’t care much about the business. And if he, Tommy, worked, it was only a matter of time—“I know it wouldn’t be much of a life for you, up there,” he said. Sometimes she thought him quite shameless, playing on her pity. He was so dreadfully constant. She felt that she’d really been his only love from the cradle—Gatesley was practically that—and would be till the grave. If only he’d flirt with another girl and I got to hear of it, Anne thought, I might be honestly jealous. Yes, I should be. And then we should have got somewhere. But Tommy had no guile. He just lay there and waited to be stepped on.

*   *   *

As the bus turned into Cambridge Circus, Anne saw him faithfully waiting, under the shelter of the Palace Theatre. And suddenly she had a most unpleasant, apprehensive, sinking feeling—worse than she’d ever felt before. It was as if she were going bad. She was neither chic, false, modern nor benign.

Oh hell, she thought—I’m afraid I’m not going to enjoy this evening at all.

Chapter II

II

THE little Society to which Major Charlesworth and Mrs. Vernon both belonged met once a week throughout the winter months. Every week it visited some monument or relic of old London—a church, a city hall, an Elizabethan gateway in the corner of a Thames-side goods yard. Its members were chiefly oldish single women, young board-school teachers with pince-nez, an occasional clergyman, scholarly and querulous, asserting himself at lectures—earnest, curious, simple people, making their rambles into a little cult, mildly pertinacious, not daunted by the jokes of draymen or the stares of guttersnipes, determined to see everything, but glad of their tea.

Ronald Charlesworth admitted to himself that he felt out of place amongst them. The obvious slight pleasure of the spinster ladies at having a military gentleman in their ranks added to his embarrassment. But he wasn’t going to be put off. As a young man he’d stood a good deal of chaff from his brother officers because of his fondness for museums, art galleries, old bookshops. Now that he was retired, middle-aged, with the War over, he could indulge his hobbies in comfort. Every week he was to be seen, at the back of the crowd—because, with his height, he could see over them easily—slightly stooping, his beautifully shaped jaw somehow recalling that of a warrior in a Japanese print, listening to what was said with a proud, delicate humility, his hands crossed like a martyr’s on the crook of his perfectly rolled umbrella.