Presently he drew a chair up to hers.

“I very much enjoyed your play,” he said. “Your best, up to date, I thought.”

“Did you? Good.”

“It’s very clever of you to be civilized as well as penetrating. I wanted to ask you, though—”

He talked intelligently about her play. It suddenly dawned on Verity that there was nobody in Upper Quintern with whom she ever discussed her work and she felt as if she spoke the right lines in the wrong theatre. She heard herself eagerly discussing her play and fetched up abruptly.

“I’m talking shop,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Why? What’s wrong with shop? Particularly when your shop’s one of the arts.”

“Is yours?”

“Oh,” he said, “mine’s as dull as ditchwater.” He looked at his watch. “Schramn is late,” he said. “Lost in the Weald of Kent, I daresay. We shall not wait for him. Tell me—”

He started off again. The butler came in. Verity expected him to announce dinner but he said, “Dr. Schramn, sir.”

When Dr. Schramm walked into the room it seemed to shift a little. Her mouth dried. She waited through an unreckoned interval for Nikolas Markos to arrive at her as he performed the introductions.

“But we have already met,” said Dr. Schramm. “Some time ago.”

iv

Twenty-five years to be exact, Verity thought. It was ludicrous — grotesque almost — after twenty-five-years, to be put out by his reappearance.

“Somebody should say: ‘what a small world,’ ” said Dr. Schramm.

He had always made remarks like that. And laughed like that and touched his moustache.

“He didn’t know me at first,” she thought. “That’ll larn me.”

He had moved on toward the fire with Mr. Markos and been given, in quick succession, two cocktails. Verity heard him explain how he’d missed the turn-off to Upper Quintern.

“But why ‘Schramm,’ ” she wondered. “He could have hyphenated himself if ‘Smythe’ wasn’t good enough. And ‘Doctor’? So he qualified after all.”