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‘I didn’t mean that. But you used to want to create
things—now you seem to want to smash them up.’
She trembled at criticizing him in these broad terms—
but his enlarging silence frightened her even more. She
guessed that something was developing behind the silence,
behind the hard, blue eyes, the almost unnatural interest
in the children. Uncharacteristic bursts of temper surprised
her—he would suddenly unroll a long scroll of contempt for
some person, race, class, way of life, way of thinking. It was
as though an incalculable story was telling itself inside him,
about which she could only guess at in the moments when it
broke through the surface.
‘After all, what do you get out of this?’ she demanded.
‘Knowing you’re stronger every day. Knowing that your
illness follows the law of diminishing returns.’
His voice came to her from far off, as though he were
speaking of something remote and academic; her alarm
made her exclaim, ‘Dick!’ and she thrust her hand forward
to his across the table. A reflex pulled Dick’s hand back and
he added: ‘There’s the whole situation to think of, isn’t there?
There’s not just you.’ He covered her hand with his and said
in the old pleasant voice of a conspirator for pleasure, mis-
chief, profit, and delight:
‘See that boat out there?’
It was the motor yacht of T. F. Golding lying placid
among the little swells of the Nicean Bay, constantly bound
upon a romantic voyage that was not dependent upon ac-
tual motion. ‘We’ll go out there now and ask the people on
board what’s the matter with them. We’ll find out if they’re

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