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Jollypot murmured something inaudible, and her eyes filled with sympathetic tears; she was not certain of what he meant, but was sure it was something beautiful and mystical.

The Doña wondered if he had had shell-shock.

But Teresa turned in her chair and scrutinised him. What exactly did he mean? Not, she felt sure, what she herself would have meant, if she had used these words, namely, that, during the five years of the War, one had been continually, or so it seemed in retrospect, in that Apolline state of intoxication into which she had fallen that very night at dinner; no, not quite the same; for that had been purely Apolline, while during the War it had been at once Apolline and Dionysiac, in that it was oneself that one was looking at from these cool heights—oneself, a blind, deaf, dusty maniac, whirling in a dance.

And, if one liked, one might call such times “heliacal periods”—a time when the star is visible ... whatever the star may be.

But David, she felt sure, meant something concrete.