'You must enclose him in a net of goodness and loving kindness, said Douglas.

The image of the enraged Randall so trammelled almost made Ann laugh, and with that an agonizing protective tenderness towards her husband brimmed up in her heart, so that at the next moment she almost wept. She said, 'I don't know about that! My love for Randall is terribly imperfect. I can't see it having any miraculous effect!

'Most of our love is shabby stuff, said Douglas. 'But there is always a thin line of gold, the bit of pure love on which all the rest depends and which redeems all the rest.

Ann thought he was talking sense, but the slight tone of exaltation wrought terribly upon her nerves. 'Perhaps, she said. 'But one can't see things like that. All that one sees is shapeless and awkward.

As she uttered the words she felt, shapeless and awkward is what I am. She had been awkward at school, and had been told that it would pass. It had not passed, and she had learnt to live with it, and it had become no easier as she grew older. She had had, she must have had, some grace when Randall first loved her and when her hair was almost as red as Miranda's: some wild grace lent her by the very fact of the dazzling, the enchanting Randall's love. But that time was hard even to imagine now. What remained was awkwardness and effort, the endless effort of confronting people with none of whom she had any sense of fitting. Had she and Randall ever' fitted'? Perhaps, in the days of their happiness, their personalities had been too hazy for the question to arise. Now the haze had cleared and they had hardened into incompatible shapes. Yet 'fitting' was still something that was possible. With Douglas, for instance, she felt almost perfectly at ease. And with Felix. Her thoughts touched this and took flight at once. It was a place where thoughts must not go. I am always saying no, said Ann to herself, all my strength has to go into saying no. I have no strength left for the positive. No wonder Randall finds me deadly, no wonder he says I kill all his gaiety. But why is it like this? And she recalled dimly and with puzzlement some quotation which said that the devil was the spirit which was always saying no.

'Shapeless and awkward, said Douglas. 'Precisely. We must not expect our lives to have a visible shape. They are invisibly shaped by God. Goodness accepts the contingent. Love accepts the contingent. Nothing is more fatal to love than to want everything to have form.

'Randall wants everything to have form, said Ann. 'But then he's an artist.

'He is a man before he is an artist, said Douglas with magisterial severity.

Ann felt she could not stand much more of this discussion. She hated this sense of their cornering Randall. She said. 'I must get on with my work, and began to rise.

Douglas Swann detained her. He inclined his smooth face towards her, drawing his chin back over his clerical collar and opening a little wider his dark brown eyes which were let with such startling immediacy into the sweep of his cheek. He said, 'Ann, you do pray, don't you?

Ann said almost furiously, 'Yes, of course. I pray every night that Randall will come back. Then she burst into wild tears.

'There, my child, my child, murmured Swann. They had both risen. He spoke with a sense of achievement, as of one who has brought a difficult piece of navigation to a successful conclusion. He began to draw the sobbing Ann to rest against his shoulder.

The drawing-room door opened abruptly to admit Mildred Finch. 'Dear me! said Mildred.

The next moment Ann was searching her pockets for a handkerchief and Douglas Swann was coughing and dusting down his coat.

'Oh, Mildred —’ said Ann. She found the handkerchief. All her face, as she rubbed it, seemed to be wet with tears. It is astonishing how many tears can flow in an instant. The instant in any case was over and she dried her face and smoothed her hair back behind her ears.

Mildred came round the edge of the semicircle of dolls and said, 'There, my dear; don't take on. She cast a hostile glance at Swann who was standing a few paces away and looking anxiously at Ann.

Ann, who was fairly composed now, said, 'I'm so glad to see you» and blew her nose. 'I don't know why I broke down so stupidly. I've been quite cheerful.

Mildred looked sceptical, and then set her feet apart in a patient yet stubborn pose which indicated with brutal clarity that she was waiting for Swann to go.

Swann said to Ann in a voice of significant tenderness. 'Are you all right now?

Mildred said, 'Of course she's not all right! Then she added conversationally, 'I've just walked up from the village. It looks quite like rain now. Fortunately I've got my umbrella.

Swann looked at— Ann for another moment. Ann said, 'I'm fine.

Thank you for being so kind, Douglas. Swann patted her lightly on the shoulder, smiled and nodded to Mildred, murmured something about having to get back and left the room.

'Well, that's got rid of him, said Mildred.

Ann sat down. The outburst of tears had exhausted her. She was glad to see Mildred, yet she felt a strange alarm too at the sight of her, as if her old friend were becoming, in some inadmissible way, a rather too significant, rather too menacing object.

She said, 'Do take your coat off and stop looking as if you were going directly. You'll stay to lunch?

'That depends, said Mildred. 'And I'll keep my coat on, I'm frozen. I can't think why you don't have a fire. There, I told you so, it's raining.

Ann looked out. The sun had gone in, and with one of those sudden tricks of the English summer the garden was windswept and the grass and trees darkened and dripping. Ann realized that she felt cold too. She said, instantly overcome by a sense of the meaninglessness of it all, 'oh God, I'm so tired —’

'You need a holiday, said Mildred. She stood there still, feet apart, umbrella under Ann, hands in the pockets of her blue check tweed coat, her light sandy grey hair jumbled about her kindly face which had softened rather than wrinkled with the approach of age.

'A holiday» Ann laughed a little harshly.

'Why not? This place could go on. Bowshott could run it.

'No he couldn't, said Ann. 'Never mind. It doesn't matter. She seemed to be saying that all the time now.

'I suppose there's no news from the deplorable Randall?

'No.

'I suppose he's going to settle down with the Rimmer girl?

'With who?

'Oh Lord! said Mildred. 'Have I put my foot in it? You didn't know he was having a terrific affair with Lindsay Rimmer, you know, Emma Sands' companion?

Ann got up and pushed her handkerchief into the sleeve of her jersey. She had an immediate impression that Mildred knew very well what she was doing. She said abruptly, 'I assumed he was having an affair with somebody. I didn't know who it was. And honestly I don't care much.

'Nonsense, child, said Mildred, after regarding her for a moment. 'Of course you care. But I'm glad that you seem to have written Randall off.

'I haven't written him off. It's just that I'm not curious about the details. He'll come back. Ann spoke jerkily, her voice getting lower and hoarser like someone reciting a confession.

Mildred spoke more softly and lightly now, as if managing a transition from a spoken to a sung litany. 'I don't think he'll come back, my dear.

'Yes, he will, said Ann. She didn't want to cry again. 'Let's go to the kitchen. It's warmer, and we can have some coffee.

'And Randall is a brute, said Mildred. 'Let us call things by their names. A brute and a cad.

'Stop it, Mildred, will you? Let's go to the kitchen. How did you get here, by the way? You said you walked from the village.

'Felix brought me, said Mildred. Her tone was bleak and provocative.

Ann said, 'oh.

When she said no more, Mildred pursued, 'Yes, he's gone to Maidstone to pick up some new blades for the lawnmower. It's so useful having him at Seton Blaise. He's renovated all the machines. — He's so mechanical.