Stephen and Candida knew nothing of all this. They sat on the ledge and talked. She told him that she lived with an aunt who had brought her up.

‘Her name is Sayle too – Barbara Sayle. She is my father’s sister. She gardens all the time. My father and mother were torpedoed in the war. Aunt Barbara is a pet.’

Stephen was perfectly right about the cold. He made her sit close up to him and put his arm round her. Sometimes they dozed, and sometimes they talked. He was going to be an architect. He hoped to pass his final exam in the summer, after which there was a place for him in an uncle’s firm. It wouldn’t be a bad job as jobs went, only working for relations wasn’t always the best thing for you. Everyone thought you were being let down easy, but sometimes it didn’t work out that way at all.

‘Richard is all right of course. As a matter of fact he’s a very fine chap, but he’s going to expect me to be about twice as good as there’s any hope of my being – just because I’m his nephew. Of course it’s a tremendous chance.’

A drowsy voice said against his shoulder, ‘I don’t see why – you shouldn’t be – quite as good – as he is – ’

He found himself talking about the houses Richard Eversley had built and the houses he hoped to build himself. Her head was warm against his shoulder. It was like talking to himself. Sometimes he knew that she was asleep. Sometimes quite suddenly she spoke. Once she said, ‘You can do anything – if you try.’ And when he came back with, ‘That’s nonsense,’ she went off into a murmur of words which sounded like, ‘If you – really – want to – ’

The night went by.

They woke in the dawn, cold and stiff. Each saw the other clearly for the first time. Candida rubbed her eyes and stretched. The sea was the colour of the pewter plates on Aunt Barbara’s dresser. It was very calm and still. The sky was an even grey, with a yellow streak low down in the east where it touched the water. There was no breeze.