“Has Miss Glendower?”
“Lots.”
The Sea Lady mused. She went off at a tangent abruptly.
“Mr. Melville,” she said, “what is a union of souls?”
Melville flicked his extinct cigarette suddenly into an elbow shape and then threw it away. The phrase may have awakened some reminiscence. “It’s an extra,” he said. “It’s a sort of flourish.… And sometimes it’s like leaving cards by footmen—a substitute for the real presence.”
There came a gap. He remained downcast, trying to find a way towards whatever it was that was in his mind to say. Conceivably, he did not clearly know what that might be until he came to it. The Sea Lady abandoned an attempt to understand him in favour of a more urgent topic.
“Do you think Miss Glendower and Mr. Chatteris——?”
Melville looked up at her. He noticed she had hung on the latter name. “Decidedly,” he said. “It’s just what they would do.”
Then he spoke again. “Chatteris?” he said.
“Yes,” said she.