They lunched at the Hut hotel and the rain held off until they were half way through the meal, but then for about half-an-hour it came down hard. Barney had been hoping that during the afternoon they would be able to go for a walk in the woods, and find some pleasant spot suitable for improving their relationship from the point it had reached in the early hours of that morning, but as the rain had made mossy banks and fallen tree-trunks too wet to sit on he had, for the time being, to confine his amorous intentions to getting closer to Mary mentally, in a long talk.

They discussed many things and found they had many tastes in common so, by the time they returned to the Hut for tea, a much greater degree of intimacy had been established between them, and he felt that his afternoon had been far from wasted. Unfortunately, however, he was debarred from following it up. That evening he had to attend a subscription concert got up by some of his Communist contacts at which one of their number was to receive a presentation on retirement from office; so he had to excuse himself to Mary for not asking her out to dinner by saying that he had a long-standing date, that he could not break, to dine with friends whom he had entertained when they were on a visit to Kenya.

Throughout the day he had purposely refrained from mentioning Ratnadatta, but he had every intention of doing so before they parted; so he was pleased when, on their way back to London, she raised the subject herself by remarking: 'I take it that you will be going to Mrs. Wardeel's on Tuesday and that I shall see you next there?'

He looked at her in feigned surprise. 'Yes, I'm going. But surely you don't mean to change your mind? You can't let me down like that?'

'Let you down?' she frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'Why, you promised me only last Tuesday that you would keep clear of Ratnadatta—for a while, anyway.'

She hesitated for a second, then took refuge in a prevarication. I didn't go out with him last night.'

'No, bless you. But that's all the more reason for avoiding him on Tuesday. You'll escape having to make excuses, then, perhaps being wheedled into promising to go to his circle with him this coming Saturday.'

'I ought to apologize to him for not turning up,' she prevaricated again.

'To hell with that! He's up to no good, and you promised me to have no more to do with him for the time being.'

'By that I thought you meant not going to his circle.'