When he saw Leni in the morning as he left for his round of visits he behaved as if nothing particular had happened. He was aware of a directly personal relationship between them, aware of it as never before; it touched something in him which was as solitary as itself. When he returned about noon Leni told him that Jessica had taken Gerald away and that the boy had made a scene.

“When he said good-bye to you?”

“He wasn’t allowed to say good-bye to me.”

“Do you know where Jessie took him?”

“To Mr. Simpson.”

“Oh yes, my wife’s brother. He’s Vicar of St. Peter’s. Nice fellow — he’s looked after Gerald before.”

“Do you think he’ll be happy?”

“Gerald? I don’t know.” He leaned against the edge of the desk and began tapping it with his fingernail. “I’m sorry it’s all happened like this. I really am. But what can I do about it? I’m not one of those people who like to make trouble. Sometimes — sometimes I wish I were.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. He knew her sympathy, yet felt it as a spell he must break at all costs.

“Has Jessie come back?” he asked.

“No, not yet. She said she’d be out for lunch.”

“Then … I won’t have any lunch. Just a cup of coffee and a sandwich here. Will you tell Susan?”

“I told Susan. I knew you always had that when Mrs. Newcome’s away.”

“See that you get something yourself.”

“I’m not hungry either.’

Over the murmur of Calderbury activities there came the twang of the street piano that always moved along Shawgate on Thursday market days, pushed by an old wooden-legged character named Joe Moore. Presently Susan entered with a plate of sandwiches and coffee. “You must have some,” David said to Leni, thinking she might as well eat and drink in the surgery as anywhere else. He smiled and then had to add: “I talked to Jessie, by the way, last night — and I’m sorry — personally I’m very sorry indeed —”

“You mean I have to go?”

“Not for a fortnight.”

“But now that Gerald’s gone —”

“I know, but I made Jessie agree to the fortnight.”

The fortnight was offered between them as a symbol of the extent to which he had argued with Jessica and opposed her; as a gesture indicating action which, had he been inclined for any, he would have taken; as, finally, a gift which could not be refused.

“Because, you see, during that fortnight we’ll have time to find you another job.”

She nodded.

“Or else, if we can’t, then I’ll pay your fare back to Germany.”

Something in her change of expression served then as a reminder, so that he went on, hastily: “Oh, but I forgot — you said you didn’t want to go back, didn’t you?”

“I can’t go back.”

He accepted the statement as if it were only just beginning to occur to him how little he knew about her, as well as how remarkably little he had ever bothered to know.