“Nobody asked me,” said Hilary, “but the first thing I can remember is a tea-table on the lawn, with flecks of sunlight glinting on the silver, and men in white coming back from tennis. I did know my father quite well. He was killed in Palestine in 1917. Wasted, I believe you said. But I know one thing. He wouldn’t think so.” He waited. John Chantrell sat in sullen silence. “I would like to say just this, if you don’t mind. You’re fed to the back teeth, I know, with things the way they are. And you wouldn’t like my sort of life any better than the one you’ve got, though it happens to suit me down to the ground. My father wasn’t just a soldier. He had a gift of languages and he used to do special jobs on the side. He didn’t want me to be a soldier either. He said any blundering fool could always die for his country. He said that sort of thing would go out of fashion when the War ended. Perhaps he was wrong. Anyway, I’ve tried to carry on from where he left off. I work alone a lot, with plenty of time to think. I’ve been away from England quite a while, out East. You might call it sentimentalizing — but I’ve seen the time when I wanted England, and what England stands for, more than I wanted immortality. Maybe England’s gone all to pot while my back was turned—but on the other hand, I assure you it looks like heaven to me!”

The lax figure beside him maintained its obstinate silence. He leaned forward to peer under the defensive hat brim. Drugged by exhaustion and emotional relief, John Chantrell drowsed against the cold stone. Hilary had a sudden impulse to shake him awake again, march him off for a drink, and shove him on a bus for Kilburn. But he dismissed it, feeling shy and futile and uncertain. He rose, and stood looking up at the great bronze face above them.

“Do you think, if I’m very careful not to jar myself or knock into anything, I can get as far as the club and have a drink there before I wake up?” he inquired of it, and there was naturally no reply. “I’m going to try, anyway. I’d like to see London again, even if it’s only a dream. I’ll leave this to you,” he told the sphinx, with a glance at Chantrell, and turned away westward, into the mist.