She started toward the door, but as she came within a yard of it, the corners of the room seemed to creak, and the door slammed. Her nerves jangled. It was all she could do to prevent herself from sobbing.

Instead she simply said, "Go to hell," and snatched at the handle. It turned easily (why should it not? yet she was relieved) and the door swung open. From the hall below, a splash of warmth and ocher light.

She closed the door behind her and, with a queer satisfaction the root of which she couldn't or wouldn't fathom turned the key in the lock.

As she did so, the bell stopped.

4

"But it's the biggest of the rooms..."

"I don't like it, Rory. It's damp. We can use the back room."

"If we can get the bloody bed through the door."

"Of course we can. You know we can."

"Seems a waste of a good room," he protested, knowing full well that this was a fait accompli.

"Mother knows best," she told him, and smiled at him with eyes whose luster was far from maternal.

THREE

1

The seasons long for each other, like men and women, in order that they may be cured of their excesses.

Spring, if it lingers more than a week beyond its span, starts to hunger for summer to end the days of perpetual promise. Summer in its turn soon begins to sweat for something to quench its heat, and the mellowest of autumns will tire of gentility at last, and ache for a quick sharp frost to kill its fruitfulness.

Even winter-the hardest season, the most implacable-dreams, as February creeps on, of the flame that will presently melt it away. Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself.