isn't anything for you to look at—or not look at. Tell your friend that the next time she throws her clothes down into my balcony I shall complain to the management. No, don't. Tell her that she ought to send her husband to retrieve them, or come herself—not send you."
Dulcie stood on one leg, evidently uncertain how to take a remark that had, actually, been prompted by a slight feeling of compassion.
"But I like it, Mr. Bolham," she said at last, feebly. "I always like to do as I'm asked. Pops says I'm ever such a helpful little girlie now that I'm growing older."
Mr. Bolham, every frail vestige of compassion destroyed on the instant, walked away on to the terrace.
In his determination to avoid the society of Dulcie, he moved quickly, and rather carelessly, into Mrs. Romayne's line of vision.
She called to him immediately.
"Come and sit here, Mr. Bolham. We're just going to order drinks."
At the sight of his employer, Waller stood up in an uncertain way, bowed, and sat down again with a slightly apologetic smile. He wore shorts and a singlet, and revealed a bony expanse of hairy chest and shoulders burnt to an ochrish brown.
"Of course you know Mr. Muller?" said Mrs. Romayne.
Mr. Bolham exchanged with Mr. Muller the briefest of nods. They had spoken to one another, shortly but quite amicably, about three times already, and Mr. Bolham approved of the great financier because he had never sought to carry the intercourse any further. He did not wonder why Mr. Muller should waste his time listening to Mrs. Romayne, because he knew only too well that people were very often allowed no choice in the matter.
Mrs. Romayne and her son's tutor, Buckland, were chaffing one another, with shrieks of laughter, and a free exchange of personal remarks.
"I've had my hair shampoo'd at the place in the village here," declared Mrs. Romayne. "Wasn't it brave of me? Of course I couldn't have had it properly set, but then I don't need to. The wave is natural."
She ran her fingers through the corrugated thatch of lustreless fair hair that fell on either side of her face and hung in unconvincing curls behind her ears.
"The wave's natural," she repeated firmly, "but I must say I don't think they've washed it half badly."
Buckland burst out laughing.
"They sprayed it all over with scent, or something. It's stinking like a street-walker's."
"You would know that, wouldn't you?" retorted Mrs. Romayne.
Mr. Bolham, to whom the conversation appeared offensive in the extreme, sought to distract his own attention from it, and averted his look from the speakers. It fell instead upon Patrick Romayne.
The white, puzzled dismay on the boy's face, his pitiful attempts to seem amused, filled Mr. Bolham with a sudden horror. What on earth was going on beneath that surface of immaturity, that young inarticulateness? The mind of Mr. Bolham, at all times distrustful of personal relations, violently protested against any consideration of such a question. He had no wish to become involved with any emotional situation, least of all one that concerned the affairs of Mrs. Romayne, her insufferable young bounder of a tutor, and her sixteen-year-old son.
The waiter arrived with drinks, for which Muller signed the bill.
"Have you seen the new couple? They only arrived yesterday," Mrs. Romayne said, without troubling to lower her voice.
Muller—habitually a silent man—said "Yeah" and Buckland exclaimed, with his usual familiarity:
"The girl's marvellous. Quite extraordinarily pretty."
"Have you succeeded in speaking to her yet?" enquired his employer derisively.
"Not yet, but I'm hoping to, on the rocks or somewhere. They're going bathing, presently—I heard them say so."
"If you get off with her, I suppose I must see what I can do with him. He looks as though he might be able to dive."
"What's the good of that, when you can't?"
"He can save my life," pointed out Mrs. Romayne.
She finished her Martini and stood up. She was tall and well made, astonishingly slim for a woman who was certainly over forty, and with definite good looks, and even charm. She was common, reflected Mr. Bolham, but she at least avoided the supreme commonness of affectation.
"Who's coming? Mr. Muller?"
"I don't think so, thanks." Muller politely rose to his feet. Waller, who had not spoken at all, nervously followed his example, looked round and saw that Buckland had not stirred, and sat down again.
"Coming?" said Mrs. Romayne carelessly. "Hell, I believe I've forgotten my bathing-shoes. I must have them, if we're going to that beastly plage down here. Or shall we get the car and run up to the rocks?"
"Yes," said Buckland. "I'll give you another diving lesson."
"Not sure if I want one."
"Yes, you do."
She made a face at him.
"Patrick, d'you want to bring the car round for your mother?" Buckland enquired, still without moving.
The boy looked at his mother.
"He isn't allowed to drive," she said, her eyes on her son's tutor all the time.
"Yes he is, if I say so. Cut along, Patrick."
"May I, mother?" said Patrick doggedly.
"I suppose so, if Buck says so."
The boy walked away, acute self-consciousness in every movement of his tall, overgrown figure. The laughter of his mother and the tutor—the pointless, spontaneous laughter of people who are exhilarated by one another's companionship, rather than amused—rang across the terrace.
"Well——" said Muller vaguely.
He moved towards the Hotel again.
"Can I fetch your shoes for you, Mrs. Romayne?" the sallow Waller enquired.
"Oh, don't bother. I mean, why should you?"
"No bother at all," said Waller eagerly. "A pleasure, I assure you."
He sped into the Hotel.
"God, anybody would think he came from behind a counter," ungratefully remarked Mrs. Romayne. "Come on, Buck. What a slack creature you are!"
She pulled the tutor out of his chair, and then stood, still holding his hands, laughing.
"Come down with us, Mr. Bolham."
"Thank you very much, I'm not going to bathe again just yet."
From the corner of his eye he saw the Morgan family gather up their bathing
