(He could, at any rate. trust her not to protest, archly: ‘That’s a nice thing to ask on one’s honeymoon!’)

She turned to him with a quick readiness, as thought here was the opportunity to say something she had been wanting to say for a long time: ‘Yes! I’ve always felt absolutely certain it was good-if only one could get it straightened out. I’ve hated almost everything that ever happened to me, but I knew all the tune it was just things that were wrong, not everything. Even when I felt most awful I never thought of killing myself or wanting to die-only of somehow getting out of the mess and starting again.’

‘That’s rather admirable. With me it’s always been the other way round. I can enjoy practically everything that comes along-while it’s happening. Only I have to keep on doing things, because, if I once stop, it all seems a lot of rot and I don’t care a damn if I go west tomorrow. At least, that’s what I should have said. Now-I don’t know. I’m beginning to think there may be something in it after all… Harriet-’

‘It sounds like Jack Sprat and his wife.’

‘If there was any possible chance of straightening it out for you… We’ve begun well, haven’t we, with this awful bloody mess? When once we get clear of it, I’d give anything. But there you are, you see, it’s the same thing over again.’

‘But that’s what I’m trying to tell you. It ought to be, but it isn’t. Things have come straight. I always knew they would if one hung on long enough, waiting for a miracle.’

‘Honestly, Harriet?’

‘Well, it seems like a miracle to be able to look forward to-to see all the minutes in front of one come hopping along with something marvellous in them, instead of just saying. Well, that one didn’t actually hurt and the next may be quite bearable if only something beastly doesn’t come pouncing out-’

‘As bad as that?’

‘No, not really, because one got used to it-to being everlastingly tightened up to face things, you see. But when one doesn’t have to any more, it’s different-I can’t tell you what a difference it makes. You-you-you-Oh, damn and blast you. Peter, you know you’re making me feel exactly like Heaven, so what’s the sense of trying to spare your feelings?’

‘I don’t know it and I can’t believe it, but come here and I’ll try. That’s better. His chin was pressed upon her head when the sword came back from sea. No, you are not too heavy-you needn’t insult me. Listen, dear, if that’s true or even half true, I shall begin to be afraid of death. At my age it’s rather disturbing. All right-you needn’t apologise. I like new sensations.’

Women had found paradise in his arms before now-and told him so, with considerable emphasis and eloquence. He had accepted the assurance cheerfully, because he had not really cared whether they found paradise or only the Champs-Elysees, so long as the place was a pleasant one. He was as much troubled and confused now as though somebody had credited him with the possession of a soul. In strict logic, of course, he would have had to admit that he had as much right to a soul as anybody else, but the mocking analogy of the camel and the needle’s eye was enough to make that claim stick in his throat as a silly piece of presumption. Of such was not the Kingdom of Heaven. He had the kingdoms of the earth, and they should be enough for him: though nowadays it was in better taste to pretend neither to desire nor deserve them. But he was filled with a curious misgiving, as though he had meddled in matters too high for him; as though he were being forced, body and bones, through some enormous wringer that was squeezing out of him something undifferentiated till now, and even now excessively nebulous and inapprehensible. Vagula, blandula, he thought-pleasantly erratic and surely of no consequence-it couldn’t possibly turn into something that had to be reckoned with. He made the mental gesture of waving away an intrusive moth, and tightened his bodily hold on his wife as though to remind himself of the palpable presence of the flesh. She responded with a small contented sound like a snort-an absurd sound that seemed to lift the sealing stone and release some well-spring of laughter deep •••’ down within him. It came bubbling and leaping up in the most tremendous hurry to reach the sunlight, so that all his blood danced with it and his lungs were stifled with the rush and surge of this extraordinary fountain of delight. He felt himself at once ridiculous and omnipotent. He was exultant. He wanted to shout.

Actually, he neither moved nor spoke. He sat still, letting the mysterious rapture have its way with him. Whatever it was, it was something that had been suddenly liberated and was intoxicated by its new freedom. It was behaving very foolishly and its folly enchanted him.

‘Peter?’

‘What is it, lady?’

‘Have I got any money?’

The preposterous irrelevance of the question made the fountain shoot sky-high. ‘My darling fool, yes, of course you have. We spent a whole morning signing papers.’

‘Yes, I know, but where is it? I mean, can I draw a cheque on it? I was thinking, I’d never paid my secretary her salary and at the moment I haven’t got a penny in the world except what’s yours.’

‘It isn’t mine, it’s your own. Settled on you. Murbles explained all that, though I don’t suppose you were listening. But I know what you mean, and yes, it’s there, and yes, you can draw a cheque on it straight away. Why this sudden state of destitution?’

‘Because, Mr Rochester, I wasn’t going to be married in grey alpaca. And I spent every blessed thing I had to do you proud, and then some. I left poor Miss Bracey lamenting and borrowed ten bob off her at the last minute for enough petrol to get me to Oxford. That’s right, laugh! I did kill my pride-but, oh, Peter! it had a lovely death.’

‘Full sacrificial rites. Harriet, I really believe you love me. You couldn’t do anything so unutterably and divinely right by accident. Quelle folie-mais quel geste!’

‘I thought it would amuse you. That’s why I told you instead of borrowing a stamp from Bunter and writing a formal inquiry to the bank.’

‘Meaning that you don’t grudge me my victory. Generous woman! While you’re about it, tell me something else. How the blazes, with all the other things, did you manage to afford the Donne autograph?’

‘That was a special effort. Three five-thousand-word shorts at forty guineas each for the Thrill Magazine.’

‘What? The story about the young man who murdered his aunt with a boomerang?’

‘Yes; and the unpleasant stockbroker who was found in the curate’s front parlour with his head bashed in. like old Noakes-Oh, dear! I was forgetting all about poor Mr Noakes.’

‘Damn old Noakes! At least, perhaps I’d better not say that. It might be true. I remember the curate. What was the third? The cook who put prussic acid in the almond icing?’

‘Yes. Where did you get hold of that exceedingly low-class rag? Does Bunter pore over it in his leisure moments?’

‘No; he reads photographic journals. But there are such things as press-cutting agencies.’

‘Are there, indeed? How long have you been collecting cuttings?’

‘Nearly six years, isn’t it, by now? They lead a shamefaced existence in a locked drawer, and Bunter pretends to know nothing about them. When some impertinent beast of a bone-headed reviewer has turned me dyspeptic with fury, he politely attributes my ill-temper to the inclement season. Your turn to laugh. I had to be maudlin over something, curse it, and you didn’t overwhelm me with material. I once lived three weeks on a belated notice in Punch. Brute, fiend, devil-woman-you might say you’re sorry.’

‘I can’t be sorry for anything. I’ve forgotten how.’

He was silent. The fountain had become a stream that ran chuckling and glittering through his consciousness, spreading as it went into a wide river that swept him up and drowned him in itself. To speak of it was impossible; he could only have taken refuge in inanities. His wife looked at him, thoughtfully drew her feet up on to the seat so as to take her weight from his knees and settled herself into acquiescence with his mood.