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By Root 5785 0

not play badminton. The Bunstables' large villa had been built in the early 'twenties in the Old Normandy manner—inside and out it was dark and nubbly with oak. It was a complex of nooks, inside which leaded windows of thick greenish glass diluted the spring sky. The stairs were manorial, the livingrooms sumptuously quaint. Brass or copper discs distorted your face everywhere; there were faience tiles. This Norman influence had blown so obliquely across the Channel that few Seale people knew it as not British, though of some merrier period. The diningroom was so impressively dark that the antiqued lights soon had to be switched on. Evelyn's manner to her mother was disdainful but kindly: her father was out. Cecil, on showing a wish to sit by Portia, was sent to sit next the tea-pot, to talk to Mrs. Bunstable. He almost at once dropped a quarter of buttered teacake on to one thigh of his plus fours, and spent most of teatime trying to look dégagé, while, with a tea serviette dipped in hot water, he secretly failed to get the butter off.

Tea over, they moved to the glass-roofed badminton court: here the rubber shoes of the whole party hung by their laces from a row of hooks. While the rest put their shoes on, Portia climbed on a high stool close to the radiator. To hitch her heels on an upper rung of the stool made her feel like a bird. She began to imagine Eddie, next Sunday, taking part in all this. Or, when it came to the moment, would they find they would rather stay by the sea—not on the sea wall but out there near the martello towers, watching waves rush up the flat sands in the dusk? No, not for too long—for she and Eddie must on no account miss the Sunday fun. He and she had not yet been together into society. Even his name said on the sea front had made Daphne's friends show several shades more regard for her—though since then they had forgotten why—she felt more kindly embraced by these people already. Supposing she had a wish to be put across, who could do this for her better than Eddie could? How much ice he would cut; how proud she would be of him. The wish to lead out one's lover must be a tribal feeling; the wish to be seen as loved is part of one's self-respect. And, they would be in each other's secret; she would see him just not winking across the room. Alone, one has a rather incomplete outlook—one is not sure what is funny, what is not. One solid pleasure of love is to check up together on what has happened. Since they were together last, she did not think she had laughed—she had smiled, of course, but chiefly to please people. No, it would be wrong to stay down by the sea.

Cecil, left out of the first sett, edged round the court and came to stand by Portia: he propped one foot on the lower rung of the stool and sent through it the vibration of a sigh. She put her thoughts away quickly. Away in the lounge, at the far end of the passage, Evelyn's mother switched the Luxembourg music on: this fitted the game—the pouncing, slithering players, the ping of the shots—into a sprightly rhythm, that pleased Portia but further depressed Cecil. "I don't care for spring, somehow," he said. "It makes me feel a bit seedy."

"You don't look seedy, Cecil."

"I do with all this butter," said Cecil, plucking unhappily at his plus fours. He went on: "What were you thinking about?"

"I'm not thinking any more."

"But you were, weren't you? I saw you. If I were a more oncoming sort of fellow I should offer you a penny, and so on."

"I was wondering what next Sunday would be like."

"Much the same, I expect. At this time of year, one begins to want a change."

"But this is a change for me."

"Of course it's nice to think it's a change for someone. It will be a change for your friend too, I expect. Funny, when I first saw you at Daphne's party, you didn't look as though you had a friend in the world. That was what drew me to you, I daresay. I seem to have got you wrong, though. Are you really an orphan?"

"Yes, I am," said Portia a shade shortly. "Are you?"

"No, not at present, but I suppose it's a thing one is bound to be.