Not, of course, that he was able to sleep deeply or unbrokenly. Tired as he was, he slept as all must sleep upon such an unwelcoming couch. Many times he woke, with varying degrees of completeness: sometimes it was a mere half-conscious adjustment of his limbs; twice or thrice a plunging start into full vitality (he noticed that the wind had began

“We’ll just go straight on,” said Phrynne. “Until we find it.” Left to himself, Gerald would have been less keen. The stones were very large and very slippery, and his eyes did not seem to be becoming accustomed to the dark.

In the end Sally won her University scholarship, and I just failed, but won the school’s English Essay Prize, and also the Good Conduct Medal, which I deemed (and still deem) in the nature of a stigma, but believed, consolingly, to be awarded more to my prosperous father than to me.

Nothing further was said for several minutes. Gerald was beginning to realise that they had yet to evolve a holiday routine.

The Coffee Room was so low that Gerald had to dip beneath a sequence of thick beams. “Why ‘Coffee Room’?” asked Phrynne, looking at the words on the door. “I saw a notice that coffee will only be served in the lounge.” “It’s the lucus a non lucendo principle.”

Psychologists, I recollected, have ascertained that the comparative inferiority of women in contexts described as purely intellectual, is attributable to the greater discouragement and repression of their curiosity when children. “Thank you, Sally. But I’m quite happy here, you know.” “You’re not. Are you, Mel?” “No. I’m not.” “Well then?” One day

They lived in the depths of the country, but had no idea of the wilderness. They were constantly together, but knew one another too well to be able to converse. Individuality had been eroded from all of them by the tides of common sentiment. Love me, said Dudley in effect, his eyes softly glowing; love mine. His London personality seemed merely a

“Where’s the Bell?” Gerald had found the hotel in a reference book. It was the only one allotted to Holihaven. But as Gerald spoke, and before the ticket collector could answer, the sudden deep note of an actual bell rang through the darkness. Phrynne caught hold of Gerald’s sleeve. Ignoring Gerald, the station-master, if such he was, turned to his

And now the handsome woman in evening dress (Edwardian evening dress, Pendlebury thought, décolleté but polypetalous) was singing, and the rest were hushed to listen.