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She telephoned while I was being shaved.

'What a deplorable thing to do, Charles! How unlike you!'

'Don't you like them?'

'What can I do with roses on a day like this?'

'Smell them.'

There was a pause and a rustle of unpacking. 'They've absolutely no smell at all.'

'What have you had for breakfast?'

'Muscat grapes and cantaloupe'

'When shall I see you?'

'Before lunch. I'm busy till then with a masseuse.'

'A masseuse?'

'Yes, isn't it peculiar? I've never had one before, except once when I hurt my shoulder hunting. What is it about being on a boat that makes everyone behave like a film star?'

'I don't.'

'How about these very embarrassing roses?'

'The barber did his work with extraordinary dexterity indeed, with agility, for he stood like a swordsman in a ballet sometimes on the point of one foot, sometimes on the other, lightly flicking the lather off his blade, and swooping back to my chin as the ship righted herself; I should not have dared use a safety razor on myself.

The telephone rang again.

It was my wife.

'How are you Charles?'

'Tired.'

'Aren't you coming to see me?'

'I came once. I'll be in again.'

I brought her the flowers from the sitting-room; they completed the atmosphere of a maternity ward which she had managed to create in the cabin; the stewardess had the air of a midwife, standing by the bed, a pillar of starched linen and composure. My wife turned her head on the pillow and smiled wanly; she stretched out a bare arm and caressed with the tips of her fingers the cellophane and silk ribbons of the largest bouquet. 'How sweet people are, ' she said faintly, as though the gale were a private misfortune of her own for which the world in its love was condoling with her.

'I take it you're not getting up.'

'Oh no, Mrs Clark is being so sweet'; she was always quick to get servants' names.

'Don't bother. Come in sometimes and tell me what's going on.'

'Now, now, dear,' said the stewardess, 'the less we are disturbed today the better.'

My wife seemed to make a sacred, female rite even of sea-sickness.

Julia's cabin, I knew, was somewhere below ours. I waited for her by the lift on the main deck; when she came we walked once round the promenade; I held the rail; she took my other arm. It was hard going; through the streaming glass we saw a distorted world of grey sky and black water. When the ship rolled heavily I swung her round so that she could hold the rail with her other hand; the howl of the wind was subdued, but the whole ship creaked with strain. We made the circuit once, then Julia said: 'It's no good. That woman beat hell out of me, and I feel limp, anyway. Let's sit down.'

The great bronze doors of the lounge had torn away from their hooks and were swinging free with the roll of the ship; regularly and, it seemed, irresistibly, first one, then the other, opened and shut; they paused at the completion of each half circle, began to move slowly and finished fast with a resounding clash. There was no real risk in passing them, except of slipping and being caught by that swift, final blow; there was ample time to walk through unhurried but there was something forbidding in the sight of that great weight of uncontrolled metal, flapping to and fro, which might have made a timid man flinch or skip through too quickly; I rejoiced to feel Julia's hand perfectly steady on my arm and know, as I walked beside her, that she was wholly undismayed.

'Bravo,' said a man sitting nearby. 'I confess I went round the other way. I didn't like the look of those doors somehow. They've been trying to fix them all the morning.'

There were few people about that day, and that few seemed bound together by a camaraderie of reciprocal esteem; they did nothing except sit rather glumly in their armchairs, drink occasionally, and exchange congratulations on not being seasick.

'You're the first lady I've seen,' said the man.

'I'm very lucky.'

'We are very lucky,' he said, with a movement