Dixon had been studying her face during this speech. The movements of her mouth were beautifully decisive, and her voice, abandoning its synthetic fuzziness, had returned to its usual clarity. These things helped to give her presence a solidity and emphasis that impressed him; he felt not so much her sexual attraction as the power of her femaleness. It was just as well that her married status put her beyond his ambition, since even their friendship demanded reserves of an attention, of a sort of mental and emotional integrity he wasn't sure he really possessed. After a short pause he said hurriedly: 'How have you managed to keep all this out of Cecil's way?'

'You don't think I haven't told him all about it, do you? I wouldn't dream of doing anything behind his back.'

Dixon fell silent again, reflecting, not for the first time, that he knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about other people or their lives. Then Carol's face moved out of the shadow. Though quick to detect a change in expression, he wasn't usually observant of the actual lineaments of people's faces, but this time he saw clearly that the outline of her lips was slightly blurred and there were two well-marked lines in her cheeks. When she spoke again he noticed something else: that the whiteness and regularity of her top teeth gave place to a black gap beyond the canines. He felt uncomfortable again.

'The only thing to settle now is what you're going to do about Christine, Jim.'

'I've told you: nothing.'

'Put dear Margaret out of your mind for once.'

'Nothing to do with her. It's just that I… well, I don't want to try anything on with Christine, that's all.'

'I've heard that one before, but it's a good one. I always laugh at that one.'

'No, honestly, Carol. I'd much rather see her once or twice and not do anything about it - what could I do about it anyway? She's a bit out of my class, don't you think? If I did try to do anything I'd only get sent off with a flea in my ear. We're both tied up with other…'

'You sound as if you're in love with her.'

'Do you think so?' he said almost eagerly; he couldn't help regarding her remark as a compliment - one that he'd been needing for a long time, too.

'Yes. Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can't, and you don't know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what's more you want to go on fitting it. The old hopeless passion, isn't it? There are no two doubts about that, as Cecil used to say before I broke him of it.'

'That's rather adolescent, isn't it? If you don't mind me saying so.'

'Yes, it is, isn't it? Have you got a cigarette, Jim? … Thanks. Yes, I was quite sure when I was about fifteen that that was the way things worked, only nobody could afford to admit it.'

'Well, there you are, then.'

'Yes, here I am now. I don't mind telling you, since I've been rather letting my hair down, that after the maturity of my twenties was over I began going back to that way of explaining things with a good deal of relief. And justification, I'd like to think, too. I'm rather keen on that formula these days, as a matter of fact.'

'Are you?'

'I certainly am, Jim. You'll find that marriage is a good short cut to the truth. No, not quite that. A way of doubling back to the truth. Another thing you'll find is that the years of illusion aren't those of adolescence, as the grown-ups try to tell us; they're the ones immediately after it, say the middle twenties, the false maturity if you like, when you first get thoroughly embroiled in things and lose your head. Your age, by the way, Jim. That's when you first realize that sex is important to other people besides yourself. A discovery like that can't help knocking you off balance for a time.'

'Carol… perhaps if you hadn't got married…'

'I couldn't have done anything else, could I?'

'Couldn't you? Why not?'

'Christ, haven't you been listening? I was in love. Let's go back to the bar now, shall we? It's so noisy in here.' Her voice trembled a little, for the first time since they'd begun talking.

'Carol, I'm terribly sorry. I shouldn't have said that.'

'Now, don't be silly, Jim, there's nothing to apologize for. It was a perfectly natural thing to say. Don't forget, though; you've got a moral duty to perform. Get that girl away from Bertrand; she wouldn't enjoy an affair with him. It wouldn't be her kind of thing at all. Mind you remember that.'

Dixon found, when they got up, that he'd forgotten about the dancers and the band; he remembered them now, however, very vividly. A tune was being played, sparing of melodic invention, free too of any marked variation in volume, rhythm, harmony, expression, tempo, or tone-colour, and, more or less in time with it, groups of dancers were wheeling, plunging, and gesticulating while the ogre, more aphasic than before, mumbled at full strength:

They re-entered the bar. Dixon felt that he'd been doing this for weeks. The sight of their party still, or again, just where they'd been before made him want very much to pitch forward on to the floor and go to sleep. Bertrand was talking; Gore-Urquhart was listening; Margaret was laughing, only now she had a hand on Gore-Urquhart's nearest shoulder; Christine was also probably listening to somebody, only now she had her head in her hands. Beesley was standing at the counter, morosely and tremulously raising a full half-pint glass to his mouth. Dixon went over to him, in search of a break from routine, but Carol looked back and converged on him. Greetings were exchanged again.

'What's this, Alfred?' Dixon asked. 'A bender?'

Beesley nodded without stopping drinking; then, lowering his glass at last, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, making a face, and referring to the quality of the beer by a monosyllable not in decent use, he said: 'I wasn't getting anywhere in there, so I came in here and came over here.'

'And you're getting somewhere over here, are you, Alfred?' Carol asked.

'On the tenth half, just about,' Beesley said.

'Bloody but unbowed, eh? That's the spirit. Well, Jim, this is obviously the place for us two - agreed? Nobody wants either of us. What's the matter? What are you looking at?' To Dixon's slight irritation, the pseudo-drunken quality had again taken possession of her voice and demeanour.

Beesley leaned forward; 'Come on, Jim: beer or beer?'

'Here we are and here we stay till they throw us out,' Carol said with synthetic defiance.

'Yes, I'll just have one, thanks, but I mustn't stay,' Dixon said.

'Because you've got to go and see how dear Margaret's getting on, is that right?'

'Well, yes, I…'

'I thought I told you to let dear Margaret stew in her own juice. And how about just using your eyes? She's enjoying herself ever so much, thank you, Mr Dixon, and thank you, Mrs Goldsmith. And thank you, too. Now's your chance, Jim; remember your moral duty? Thank you, Alfred; here's to you, my boy.'

'What moral duty's this, Carol?'

'Jim knows, don't you, Jim?'

Dixon looked over at the group in the corner. Margaret had taken off her glasses, a certain sign of abandonment. Christine, her back to Dixon, was sitting as immobile as if she'd been mummified. Bertrand, still talking, was smoking a black cigar. Why was he doing that? A sudden douche of terror then squirted itself all over Dixon. After a moment he realized that this was because he had a plan and was about to carry it out. He panted a little with the enormity of it, then drained his glass and said quaveringly: 'Here goes, then. Good-bye for now.'