'No. Then suddenly she said, 'Would you take me to Grayhallock if I asked?

Hugh was surprised, shocked, pleased. He said, 'Certainly, I'd be delighted to. But the next moment he felt that his willingness was a betrayal of Ann. He ought not, surely, to display her abandoned condition to the cold curious gaze of Randall's protector. And it was almost as if he felt that if he allowed Emma to come there she might put a spell on them all. The people at Grayhallock, what was left of them, were after all his family.

'I'll think about that too, said Emma. 'Now do go. I keep asking you to go and you pay no attention. Those children will be back any moment.

He approached her. He wished before leaving to startle her into a moment of warmth; for he had the impression, and he looked forward to reflecting on it, that she was concealing at least some pleasure at seeing him again.

She said, 'I suppose I owe it to you after all that I turned to the consolations of art! Her laugh, as she looked up at him, seemed more nervous.

She watched him with raised eyebrows as he knelt down slowly and awkwardly beside her chair. As he looked at her now in silence he felt again, as he had felt when he entered the room, that miraculous sense of her being which made a solitude; only this time it was a solitude where only she was. It was he who was absent. Surely this was love. Still looking he groped for her hand.

She drew in a long breath. After a moment she whispered, as if to conceal the words even from herself, 'Ah, you should have been braver then. Shouldn't you? Shouldn't you?

He said 'Yes' with so full a heart that he could no longer face her.

He lifted the dry, stained, bony hand towards his lips. It smelt so strongly of nicotine that he could not prevent himself from inhaling in an ecstasy of memory before he kissed it.

Chapter Thirteen

'SQUARE one, said Randall.

Lindsay laughed.

They were sitting side by side in a big Edwardian pub near the comer of Church Street. The door stood open to the dusty sunny road, and the endless line of traffic. Their hands were clasped under the table.

'I wonder how my father is getting on with your —’ said Randall.

The final word presented insuperable difficulties.

'I hope excellently, said Lindsay. She had her big bland wide face turned towards him.

He did not look at her, but let his delighted attention wander about the pub, noting a pair of very young lovers, also holding hands, a Chelsea pensioner, two aged crones and a Teddy boy. About all these people a glory shone. Randall was experiencing somewhat the emotions of a dog suddenly presented with the Sunday joint; and indeed he looked, with his expression of rapturous doubt joined with apprehension of a higher and inconceivably beneficent yet also dangerous world, positively dog-like.

He said, 'Do you really mean that? Her tender, intent, ironical gaze gently toasted one side of Iris face.

'Of course I do, said Lindsay. She squeezed his hand with an increasing pressure, digging in her finger nails..

Randall winced. 'She shouldn't have let us out, should she? he said. 'I mean, it puts ideas into our heads. We ought to have been sitting together on the sofa and being referred to as «the young people». He turned his wrist against Lindsay's hand until her grip relaxed.

'Ah, she trusts us!

'But she's wrong to trust us, isn't she? said Randall eagerly. He turned for a moment to face Lindsay. The big, intent, slightly mocking yellow eyes were very close to his own. He could not search their speckled depth for images of victory or flight. Joy and humility confused him utterly.

'That's up to you, boy, said Lindsay. She gave his hand another squeeze and withdrew hers. The pale eyes widened a moment with an intensified mockery and were withdrawn too. Randall now studied her profile. The lips and cheeks were moulded with a spiritual complacency which made him faint with delight. Just so arrogantly self-filled would an angel look in repose.

'Well, it's up to you too, my queen, said Randall. 'You want to be — taken, don't you?

'If you're brave enough to take me. Not otherwise. Otherwise I'm very well off as I am, thank you. She spoke with a little-girlish satisfaction.

Randall sighed. This was the point they had got to the last time, just before Emma had so obligingly swallowed them up. 'But you've got to help me to be brave. Don't let us have a vicious circle here.

'I'm afraid I'm not going to help you, said Lindsay. She spoke judiciously. 'But I expect I shall watch your struggles with sympathy. She laughed.

'They are struggles, you know, said Randall. 'I wonder how much you really imagine them? You know how I feel Ann now as a dead weight. Yet at the same lime I'm terribly sorry for her. And I'm hideously — connected with her. It's odd how that connexion survives any real relationship. And it seems to go out into everything. The roses. Even the bloody furniture!

Randall spoke sincerely. He knew that there was a world of difference between a secret liaison and a public rupture, and he feared the latter in a dozen ways. Yet there was also in him, and it seemed at times to shiver through him like a shaft of light, a pure desire for destruction, to smash everything to bits. He worshipped the purity of that urge. He wished he could explain to Lindsay how important it was to him that she should let her wildness play, as it were, upon him. His tiny purity yearned to her immense purity as to the ground of its being, and he struggled with her wordlessly as a mystic struggles with his God.

'How you manage your wife is your affair, said Lindsay. 'I don't want to hear about it.

'I don't see why I should do all the work!

'Assuming your marriage is over, said Lindsay, ignoring his remark. 'Is it? She turned towards him again and gave him a hard look. Her face had at such moments a strength before which Randall foundered.

'Yes, of course it is.

'Well then, act accordingly.

'Ah, you are honest, he said. 'You are so much honester than I am! So much stronger too, it was on the tip of his tongue to say, but he refrained. He did not want positively to suggest to Lindsay that she was dominant. Lindsay bestriding him had better remain a private fantasy.

Lindsay smiled. The strength passed without remainder into the smile. The other side of a turning screw. 'The world would not account either of us honest. I wonder how much you really fear the world. Randall?

Randall did not know. He said emulating her toughness, 'Time will show. He added, 'I suppose we are rather unprincipled, aren't we?

'We don't live by abstract rules, said Lindsay. 'But our acts have their places. They belong to us.

'Their places in a pattern, said Randall. 'Yes. In a form. Our lives belong to us. But he thought at once, I am talking nonsense. My life has not belonged to me for years. And then he thought, but it will belong to me, and he felt the shaft of light go through him. To cover up his last remark he said. 'Ann lives by rules and her acts don’t have places, they don't belong anywhere. It's a very depressing thing to witness. I wonder why it's so depressing? It makes me so gloomy sometimes I want to die. Ann is abstract. He spoke with a sudden passion. What was it he so positively hated here?

'Morality is depressing, said Lindsay. She was smiling slightly and drawing her finger in and out of the wet rings on the table to make a complex rosiform pattern.

'Your morality is not, said Randall. 'It invigorates, it inspires, it gives life. You have a marvellous moral toughness. You are so completely honest and genuine. You do me immense good.

'Get me another drink, Randall dear.

He rose and went to the bar. Simply drinking with her was paradise. He looked about him. A group of people had come in. A fat elderly woman joined them. She kissed each of them. They all began to chatter. Randall looked on them with amazement and affection. Wonderful ordinary people whose lives worked.