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Rainfall was occurring, a thunderstorm threatening London, and the immured Hardings felt the need of more light. René Harding sprang up to switch on a standing lamp.

'Another beastly day,' he said absentmindedly.

'From whom is the telegram?' Essie enquired.

'From Canada. It is from a colleague of mine with some information I required.'

Essie was looking at him, as if expecting the answer about the telegram to complete itself. Professor René Harding was tall, about five foot eleven with broad shoulders and such markedly narrow hips that the lower part of his jacket was inclined to flap. His beard did not crudely blot out his face, nesting his eyes in a blue-black bush or surrounding them with a disturbing red vegetation. It merely lengthened the face, and stylistically grained and striped it with a soft material not differing greatly from it in tone, reminiscent of the elegant stone hair which leaved, curled upon, and grooved the long French faces upon the west façade at Chartres. His eyes were of a brown to match the somewhat sallow skin. When he laughed, rather than bisecting his face laterally, he thrust forward his bristling mouth in what might be called the ho-ho-ho position, employed by the actor if he wishes to give the idea of something stiltedly primitive. Should it be one of an archaically masculine, bearded chorus of uncouth warriors that he has to represent, that is when he ho-ho-ho's (not ha-ha-ha's). René's eyes were at the cat-like angle, glittering out of a slit rather than, as with his wife, showing the eye in its full circular expansion. He was one of those men it is difficult to imagine without a beard: and who one felt was very handsome bearded, but did not feel sure about its being so becoming were he to be beardless.