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By Root 5802 0

arch to the other stairs—there was no lift—then she darted up ahead of him like a rabbit. He followed, stepping heavily, ostentatiously, whistling nonchalantly a little flat, fumbling round all the time for his room key, passing palms on landings with that erect walk of the sleep-walker—his usual walk. Her day had been all stairs—all the same, her look became wilder, more unbelieving as, whenever she turned her head, he kept signalling: "Up, up." This house seemed to have no top—till she came to the attic floor. At Windsor Terrace, that floor close to the skylight was mysterious with the servants' bodily life—it was the scene of Matchett's unmentioned sleep. Under this hotel skylight he came abreast with her: whistling louder, he unlocked his own door. Till now, she had not seen him approach anything with the authority that comes from possession. After that second, she was looking doubtfully over a lumpy olive sateen eiderdown at a dolls' house window dark from a parapet.

"I fit pretty tight," he said. "But, you see, they give me cut price terms."

His anxious nonchalance, and his caution—for he went out again to knock on the other doors, to be certain there was nobody on this landing—made her not speak as she passed the end of the bed to sit, facing the window, on the edge of his eiderdown. He said: "Well, here we are," with an air of solemn alarm—he had just fully realised their position. His chair back grated against the chest of drawers: on the mat there was just room for his feet. "Now," he said, "go on. What made you cry just now?"

"All those people everywhere, the whole time."

"I mean, what brought you here? What is this you say you are running from?"

"Them all. What they make happen—"

He interrupted, austerely: "I thought there was something special; I thought something had happened."

"It has."

"When?"

"It always has the whole time; I see it has never stopped. They were cruel to my father and mother, but the thing must have started even before that. Matchett says—"

"You ought not to listen to servants' talk."

"Why? When she's the person who sees what really happens? They did not think my father and mother wicked; they simply despised them and used to laugh. That made all three of us funny, I see now. I see now that my father wanted me to belong somewhere, because he did not: that was why they have had to have me in London. I hope he does not know that it has turned out. like this. I suppose he and my mother did not know they were funny: they went on feeling upset because they thought they had once done an extraordinary thing (their getting married had been extraordinary) but they still thought life was quite simple for people who did not do extraordinary things. My father often used to explain to me that people did not live the way we did: he said ours was not the right way—though we were all quite happy. He was quite certain ordinary life went on—yes, that was why I was sent to Thomas and Anna. But I see now that it does not: if he and I met again I should have to tell him that there is no ordinary life."

"Aren't you young to judge?"

"I don't see why. I thought when people were young that they were allowed to expect life to be ordinary. It did seem more like that at the seaside, but as soon as Eddie came it got all queer, and I saw even the Heccombs did not believe in it. If they did, why were they so frightened by Eddie? Eddie used to say it was he and I who were mad, but he used to seem to think we were right, too. But today he said we were wrong: he said I gave him the horrors and told me to go away."

"That's it, is it? You two have had a quarrel?"

"He's shown me all my mistakes—but I have not known what to do. He says I've gone on taping him too much. I never could stop asking him why he did some things: you see, I thought we wanted to know each other."

"We all take these knocks—this is your first, I daresay. Look here, my dear child, do you want a handkerchief?"

"I have one somewhere." Automatic, compliant, she pulled a crushed one out of a buttoned pocket, held it up to please him, then, in