Dr Worthington inclined his head. “Dear lady, you are right.” The words ‘dear lady’ should have sounded gallant and complimentary. They did not. “What I have done for her is a safeguard. The real strength is in the girl herself – and all the work that you and Mr Lett have done in the past. That is still there. You need have no worries about it, no worries at all.”

“Just as long as you’re sure,” said Jack Lett. It was not his job to cast a shadow on the rosy future. He turned towards Mrs Bannister again, voicing a query which had not yet been openly discussed between them. “Do we take the old man along, Belle?”

The question had been in the back of Mrs Bannister’s mind also, ever since the initial crisis: now she faced it with candid realism. She loathed Charles Bannister, for all that he had been in the past, for seducing her from the simpler life which had been hers when first they met again, after their ten-year separation, and especially for what he had done to Esther – the crown of his career. But in their expedient, confederate world, loathing was not enough. “You know I don’t want to,” she answered, “but he’s still part of the outfit. People have got used to him, by now: they expect him to be there. They’re liable to start asking questions if he’s not.”

Dr Worthington joined in again. “That is so. He is part of the thing you have built up. He need not worry you at all, now. But he should be there.”

“Just so long as he doesn’t start getting ambitious again,” said Jack Lett hardly.

“He won’t do that.” Mrs Bannister was emphatic. “You’ve seen him, Jack. Pearl Harbour isn’t in it. He’s finished … We’ll take him along, as part of the scenery. He won’t bother us – or Esther.”

“It would be very serious if he did bother Esther, very serious indeed,” said Dr Worthington. “There would be a danger of a complete breakdown, in that case … But as you say, he is finished.” He grinned horribly. “Like a horse that has that little operation. There is no more interest.”

“That’s a load off all our minds,” said Mrs Bannister.

There was a slight sound behind them, and they all turned. It was Esther. She stood in the doorway between the house and the porch, groping with uncertain fingers for the edge of the frame. She looked as she had always done in the past: young, fresh, startlingly beautiful and helpless. She was staring at them, and not seeing them at all.

“Come in, honey,” said Mrs Bannister. “We were just talking about you.”

Esther gave no sign that she had heard a single sound. She continued to stand there, her fingers grasping the door frame, considering the hazards of the next step. It was clear that she was wearing Dr Worthington’s full regalia, and that because of this she was Esther Costello again.