Rick looked at Nina. The emotions which gripped her were almost embarrassingly obvious. Firstly she was jealous that Anna could arouse such a powerful response in Fiddlingchild by such indirect means. But that simple jealousy was qualified by a certain Schadenfreude in contemplating the discomfiture Fiddlingchild would certainly suffer when he found out exactly what it was that Anna was feeling. It was also studded with flashes of pure sympathy with Anna as a woman moved by passions not entirely unlike her own. But above all it was underlaid with a flood of sheer relief that matters had at last been brought out into the open.

Rowe paused, and inspected the mental picture he was describing. Would Fiddlingchild lift his downcast eyes long enough to perceive that the almost paternal manner in which Rick was passing Nina a glass of vodka was caused by the child-like openness with which she allowed her reactions to Anna’s reactions to be so legible in the behaviour of the lines at the corners of her mouth? Or would he – Jesus! – would he suppose that the expression on Rick’s face was simply the result of a passing spasm of heartburn? Impossible to be so blind. Yet judging by his humiliating failure to deduce the cause of Anna’s scorn the man was well on the way to developing into a first-class moron. Rowe could see the reviews – ‘This coarse caricature of brutal stupidity is a travesty of human intelligence.’ Quick, some dialogue!

‘Been to the beach, you two?’ demanded Nunopolos suddenly, looking at Rick and Nina. The question was put casually enough, but from the way Nunopolos’s little finger curled round his glass as he spoke, Rick knew that in fact it was a challenge to Rick’s right to concern himself with Nina’s motivation when he, Nunopolos, was locked in his barren mutual exploration of motives with Fiddlingchild.

‘Yes,’ replied Rick, and the word meant not ‘yes,’ but a clear negation of the validity of Nunopolos’s challenge, a dangerous reassertion of his own right to think and react with utter simplicity. Rick saw that Nunopolos had understood this instantly. He glanced at Anna, and saw that she knew Nunopolos had understood it. Out of the corner of his eye he observed that Nina had comprehended Anna’s reaction to Nunopolos almost in spite of herself. He looked round to see how Fiddlingchild had taken Nina’s expression. But Fiddlingchild had fallen asleep.

Rowe awoke from the drowsiness that was overtaking him with a start. Something terrible had happened. What was it? He quickly read through the last two paragraphs he had written. Fiddlingchild had gone to sleep! God in heaven, where had this cretin been dug up? How could any man with red blood in his veins fall asleep at such a moment, when there were motives, and motives for motives, to be intuited, reactions, and reactions to reactions, to be observed?