‘I’m due to dine with Tony in twenty minutes,’ said Roddy.... ‘You’d better come along too. I’ll call for you on my way back. I shan’t be long.’
Roddy’s voice had forced a note of carelessness ... as if he were trying to pretend to Martin that nothing had happened; that the female had not suddenly singled him out and stretched an inviting hand to him as he stood beside his friend.
Even Roddy was aware of it.
‘No,’ said Martin, ‘I won’t dine with Tony. I’ll see you to-morrow perhaps.’
He waved his hand and turned away. The car started. She was alone with a strange man.
The night was dark, with a piercing wind and a faint flurry of snow in the air. Roddy drove at a great pace, and she sat beside him in silence, her shoulder touching his.
‘Cold?’ he said suddenly.
‘No, I don’t feel—anything.’
All of life was concentrated in her dark beating mind: her body was insensible to the weather. She saw the gates of College fly past. Its lights gleamed and were gone; and she could not speak. On they went, the long straight empty road flung before them in small lengths by the headlights and rolled up into nothingness behind them, cast away for ever.
He stopped the car suddenly.