course it is. Otherwise I shouldn't have suggested it. I needn't have taken my leave now. I only decided to when I knew you'd been sent here and it seemed obvious that you'd be billeted at Coombe. Personally, I think it's an absolutely Heaven-sent chance."
"I know, darling. Of course it is. Only—in your own home—and with your family there——"
"It's a largish house," Primrose observed coolly. "You won't have to behave like the lover in a French farce, if that's what you're afraid of."
"Thank God for that, anyway. Do they know already—of course they do—that I'm a friend of yours?"
"Yes. I told Jess on the telephone. What I did say," Primrose elaborated, in a tone of careful candour, "was that we'd met in London at a sherry-party—which is true—and that you quite frequently took me out to dinner. What I, naturally, didn't say, was that I'd only known you a fortnight."
"Then, officially, how long are we supposed to have known one another?"
"Better make it a few months. But as a matter of fact, they probably won't ask. I've trained them not to ask me questions."
"It doesn't follow that they won't ask me any."
"You can cope with them, if they do. Don't pretend you haven't had practice enough, Rory. And mummie's not at all a difficult person to side-track."
Lonergan drove on in silence until he presently enquired:
"Are we stopping at The Two Throstles?"
"Aren't we?"
He laughed and turned the car into the gravelled sweep before the white stucco building, low and long, with fumed oak doors and window frames.
Little plaques above the doors on either side of the entrance bore respectively the words "Lounge" and "Drawing-room" but a painted board leaning against the wall pointed the way: To American Cocktail Bar.
Primrose walked straight to it, her long, flexible fingers pinching and pressing at the flat curls of her hair.
Rory Lonergan hung up his cap and overcoat and followed her.
The place was hot, crowded and thick with smoke. Every high stool at the bar was occupied, but a man and a girl, both in Air Force uniform, were just leaving a table and Primrose, pushing her way past two women who also were evidently making for it, flung herself into one of the vacant chairs and threw her bag on the other.
Lonergan said to the defeated ladies, neither of whom was either young or smart:
"I'm so sorry. Won't you take the other chair?"
They looked confused and abashed, murmuring thanks and disclaimers, and at that moment a party of young officers moved away from the bar.
"Ah, that's better. Will I get you two of the stools?" said Lonergan, and he allowed an exaggeratedly Irish intonation to sound in the words, knowing that this would somehow reassure them and cause them to think of him, not as a strange man who had spoken to them without an introduction, but merely as "an Irish officer".
As he had expected, they smiled and looked happier, and he pulled out two of the vacated stools and saw them perched, one on each, like elderly and rather battered birds on over-small gate-posts.
Then he joined Primrose.
"What the hell——?"
"You were damned rude, as you always are. We could have waited. The poor old girls had spotted these chairs before you did."
"I hate waiting."
"And I hate bad manners."
"In that case, I don't really see why you ever took up with me."
Lonergan looked her up and down.
"As I've told you before, I liked your looks. You've got the most marvellous line I've ever seen."
"Is that all?"
"Not quite all—though nearly," said Lonergan. "What are you going to drink?"
"Gin and vermouth."
He ordered the drinks.
"Why have you got such an obsession about manners?" Primrose enquired out of a long silence, after her second drink.
"It's just another middle-class characteristic."
"It isn't. My aristocratic parent is the same."
"Is she now. Diplomatic circles and all. Why didn't she succeed in bringing you up better?"
"Because what makes sense in one generation doesn't in the next, obviously."
"Well," said Lonergan, "of course she and I belong to one generation and you to another. That's clear as crystal. Have another drink?"
"Okay. Same again."
The third round was consumed in silence, but Primrose, sprawling in her chair, pushed out one long slim leg and pressed it hard against Lonergan's thigh.
It was he who eventually moved, suggesting that they had better be going on.
"Okay," said Primrose indifferently.
She got up and threaded her way past the tables and chairs, moving with her characteristic effect of ruthless, effortless poise. But when they were in the hall Lonergan saw that her eyes were glazed and she remarked in her most indistinct drawl:
"You all right for driving? I'm slightly—very slightly—tight."
"Well, I'm not. Come on."
He took her by the elbow and steered her out into the darkness.
"God, I can't see a thing in this damned black-out."
"You'll be all right in a second. Stand still on the step and don't move while I get the car round."
When they were on the road again Lonergan said:
"You can't possibly be tight on three small drinks. I suppose you haven't had anything to eat all day."
"Not a thing, except one cup of utterly filthy coffee for breakfast. I'll be all right, directly."
She slumped down in her seat, leaning her head against his shoulder.
Lonergan, driving slowly, partly because he was careful in the black-out and partly because he wanted to give her time to recover herself before they arrived, thought that, so long as she remained silent and rather movingly helpless, he could almost make himself imagine that he loved her a little.
The car was turning into the lane that led to Coombe before Primrose spoke.
"I wish we were staying at The Two Throstles to-night."
"So do I," Lonergan answered automatically, and wishing nothing of the kind since he was perfectly well-known at The Two Throstles and so, certainly, was she.
"When
