“Indeed, you couldn’t.”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve really gone through my Troy phase. You won’t agree, of course, but I’m afraid I feel she’s painted herself out.”

“Are you?”

Mr. Jones dropped the tube of paint on the floor.

Ricky picked it up.

“Jerome et Cie,” he said. “They’re a new firm, aren’t they? I think they sent my Mum some specimens to try. Do you get it direct from France?”

Jones took it from him.

“I generally use acrylic,” he said.

“Well,” Ricky said, “I think I’ll seek my virtuous couch. It was nice of you to ask me in.”

They faced each other as two divergent species in a menagerie might do.

“Anyway,” Ricky said, “we do both speak English, don’t we?”

“You reckon?” said Mr. Jones. And after a further silence: “Oh Christ, forget the lot and have a beer.”

“I’ll do that thing,” said Ricky.

ii

To say that after this exchange all went swimmingly at Mr. Jones’s Pad would not be an accurate account of that evening’s strange entertainment, but at least the tone became less acrimonious. Indeed, Mr. Jones developed high spirits of a sort and instructed Ricky to call him Syd. He was devoured by curiosity about Ricky’s mother, her approach to her work and — this was a tricky one — whether she took pupils. Ricky found this behavioral change both touching and painful.

Miss Harkness took no part in the conversation but moodily produced bottled beer of which she consumed rather a lot. It emerged that the horse Ricky had shrunk from in the dark was her mount. So, he supposed, she would not spend the night at Syd’s Pad, but would ride, darkling, to the stables or — was it possible? — all the way to L’Espérance and the protection (scarcely, it seemed, called for) of the Pharamonds.

By midnight Ricky knew that Syd was a New Zealander by birth, which accounted for certain habits of speech. He had left his native soil at the age of seventeen and had lived in his Pad for a year. He did some sort of casual labor at Leathers, the family riding stables to which Miss Harkness was attached but from which she seemed to have been evicted.