‘Oh, heavens: that!’ Tommy said, making motions as of a man mopping his forehead.
‘Didn’t he present it?’
‘If letting her have it is presenting it, I suppose technically he presented it. He handed it over with a speech he had thought up himself.’
‘What kind of speech?’
‘I think he had been rehearsing a sort of get-out for himself ever since we talked him into it by making Zoë Kentallen a rebel of some kind. Which was Laura’s idea, by the way, not mine. Well, when she stooped to take the great bush of carnations from him—she’s very tall—he held them out of her reach for a moment and said firmly: “I’m only giving you this, mind, because you’re a fellow-revolutionary.” She took it without batting an eyelid. She said: “Yes, of course. How very kind of you,” although she hadn’t an idea what he was talking about. She bowled him over, by the way.’
‘How?’
‘In the good old female way. Pat is in the throes of his first infatuation.’
Grant looked forward to seeing this phenomenon.
Clune lay very peaceful in its green hollow, and Grant looked at it as one coming home victorious from battle. Last time he had driven up that sandy road he had been a slave; now he was a free man. He had gone out to look for B Seven and had found himself.
Laura came out to meet him at the doorstep and said: ‘Alan, have you taken to a tipster’s business on the side?’