‘You should make an article of it,’ said Nancy, ‘and send it to The Nineteenth Century.’
‘So I might.’ He paused, and added casually, ‘You read The Nineteenth Century?’
‘Now and then.’
Nancy felt herself an impostor, for of leading reviews she knew little more than the names. And Tarrant’s look, so steady, yet so good-tempered, disturbed her conscience with the fear that he saw through her. She was coming wretchedly out of this dialogue, in which she had meant to make a figure.
He changed the subject; was it merely to spare her?
‘Shall you go to Teignmouth again this year?’
‘I don’t know yet. I think not.’
Silence followed. Tarrant, to judge from his face, was absorbed in pleasant thought; Nancy, on the other hand, felt so ill at ease that she was on the point of rising, when his voice checked her.
‘I have an idea’—he spoke dreamily—‘of going to spend next winter in the Bahamas.’
‘Why the Bahamas?’