‘But we are all so happy, and things were—’ she broke off. ‘Oh, well. Nothing I can say will make you change your mind. I ought to know that. Nothing has ever made you deviate by a hair’s breadth from any line that you once set your mind on. You’ve always been a damned Juggernaut.’
‘A damned horrible metaphor,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you make it a bullet or a bee-line or something equally undeviating but less destructive?’
She put her arm through his, friendly and a little amused. ‘But you are destructive, darling.’ And as he began a protest: ‘All in the very kindest and most lethal way imaginable. Come and have a drink. You look as if you could do with one.’
11
Even the undeviating Grant, of course, had his unsure moments.
‘You fool!’ said that inner voice, as he was climbing into the London plane at Scoone. ‘Giving up even a day of your precious leave to hunt will-o’-the-wisps.’
‘I’m not hunting any will-o’-the-wisps. I just want to know what happened to Bill Kenrick.’
‘And what is Bill Kenrick to you that you should give up even an hour of your free time for him?’
‘I’m interested in him. If you want to know, I like him.’
‘You don’t know a thing about him. You have made a god in your own image, and are busy worshipping it.’