She had her foot on the bottom step of the half flight leading from the front door, when a sports car whizzed in at the gate and came to an abrupt stop beside her. Pippa, in scarlet slacks and a sleeveless jersey, sprang out and embraced her. When last seen her hair had been a fair brown. It was now platinum. She wore dark glasses with scarlet rims which she took off and snapped away in a startling red and white bag as she brushed Carmona’s cheek with her own. Her eyes at least had not changed. They were as bright, as blue, and very nearly as dazzling as the sea.

“Darling!” she said. “What a frightful house! But how nice to see you! You’re not going to live in it are you? You really couldn’t! I’m sure it’s got black beetles, and a basement, and the sort of old-fashioned range that simply eats up coal! You must tell me everything! But I’d better put the Tick away first-it belongs to George Robertson, and he’s rather mean about his things! He was quite frightfully peeved when I ran into a lamp-post and smashed the windscreen of the car he had before this one-and it was more or less dropping to pieces anyhow and well overdue for the scrap heap!”

The three years since they had last met were gone. Pippa was just the same. The current young man’s name had been Jocko then, it now appeared to be George. That was all. Whatever it was, he would be considered as a provider of cars, flowers and other unconsidered trifles, and more or less treated like dirt whilst kind, stodgy Bill Maybury looked on with a tolerant smile. Carmona had a moment’s faint wonder as to what James would do or say if she were to start borrowing cars and being continually here, there and everywhere with one infatuated young man after another. All at once she shivered and felt cold. Too silly-because the sun was really hot today.