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Before he thought he had returned and fetched his cup, received coffee he did not want. He felt like a fool and being young he resented it. All right for you, he promised her and sat again in a dull rage. To hell with them all.

‘I have offended you, haven’t I?’ she asked. ‘But, Lowe, I feel so bad, and you were about to make love to me.’

‘Why do you think that?’ he asked, hurt and dull.

‘Oh, I don’t know. But women can tell. And I don’t want to be made love to. Gilligan has already done that.’

‘Gilligan? Why, I’ll kill him if he has annoyed you.’

‘No, no: he didn’t offend me, any more than you did. It was flattering. But why were you going to make love to me? You thought of it before you came in, didn’t you?’

Lowe told her youngly: ‘I thought of it on the train when I first saw you. When I saw you I knew you were the woman for me. Tell me, you don’t like him better than me because he has wings and a scar, do you?’

‘Why, of course not.’ She looked at him a moment, calculating. Then she said: ‘Mr Gilligan says he is dying.’