‘Oh, yes! She....’ Still with her face hidden she added, summoning a faint but steady voice: ‘I’d go to her now, this minute, if I knew where she was. But I don’t.’
There was a silence; and then he said gently:
‘I’ll find her for you if you like, my dear.’
She stretched a hand across the table to him.
‘No. Help me forget her ... and everything else....’
He stroked the hand; and without a word left her, to pay the bill. When he came back she was able to raise a calm and smiling face to him.
The stars were out when they took the road again, and the coming dark flowered like a field of pansies.
‘Hadn’t we better go home now, Julian?’
‘No. I’m not going to take you home yet.’
She sat beside him, silent and dully apprehensive.