Katharine stood there and thought about being tough. Some people were born tough, some people achieved toughness, and others had it thrust upon them. It was being thrust on her at this moment, and she didn’t know what to do with it. She had a sick kind of feeling that she might just let go and be the world’s completest flop. And yet all she had to do was to walk into the shop and say she had been told that they were looking for an assistant, and did they think she would do. Anyone who had been through the war as an A.T. ought to be able to manage that. And of course it would have been the easiest thing in the world if only it didn’t really matter whether she got the job or not. It mattered so much that her feet were cold and her heart was knocking against her side.

She looked at one of the rollicking Wurzel Dogs, and he looked back at her with his jovial rolling eye. ‘Get along on with it and don’t be a fool!’ was undoubtedly what he would have said if William could have endowed him with actual speech.

Katharine bit her lip very hard indeed and walked into the shop, where she encountered Miss Cole. William Smith, coming through from the workshop, saw them standing together. Miss Cole, pale, plump, efficient, spectacled, in her tight black dress, her ginger-coloured cardigan, and the tufts of cotton wool which she wore in her ears to keep out the cold. He saw her as he saw her every day and continually. And then he saw Katharine, and heard her say, ‘Good-morning. I hear you are needing someone to help in the shop.’ He heard the words, but just for the moment they didn’t make any sense, because her voice went through him like music. Thought stopped and feeling took its place. It didn’t really matter what she had said. All that mattered was that she should speak again. He heard Miss Cole say, ‘Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,’ and with that, thought took over again, and the sense of what Katharine had said came to him like a delayed echo – ‘I hear you are needing someone to help in the shop.’