‘Not to help my good friend Madoc?’

She made a little face and shook her head.

‘Not to help me, if I stay on here to work with him?’

‘Are you going to do that?’ she said eagerly.

‘I don’t know. Here I am, at an end. Somewhere I have read that every end is a new beginning. At this moment I am at a corner. If there is a beginning on the other side of it, I cannot see what it is. Perhaps I shall stay here and work with Madoc.’ His smile became faintly ironical. ‘It will be restful to make the synthetic milk and the synthetic egg, the concentrate of beef – and perhaps without any hen or any cow. There have been times when I have envied Madoc – and how much pleasure it will give him to feel that he had converted me! He is a zealot, our good Madoc.’

Janice jumped up and said, ‘He’s a very cross, tiresome man.’

He laughed. ‘What – you have been in trouble?’

‘Oh, not more than usual. He called me dolt three times, and idiot twice and miserable atomy once – that’s a new one, and he was awfully pleased about it. You know, I used to wonder why he had a girl instead of a man, and why he picked me when there are lots of women with proper science degrees. I happen to know that Ethel Gardner applied for the job and didn’t get it. She was considered awfully good at college. She got a first, and I didn’t get anything because of having to come down and nurse my father. And I couldn’t make it out, but now I know. No man would have stood it for half a minute, and no qualified woman would either, but I’m a little bit of a thing and I haven’t any qualifications, so he thinks he can stamp on me. I wouldn’t stay a minute if you went.’

He patted her shoulder.

‘It is just a way of speaking – it has no meaning. He does not think those things.’

‘He says them.’ Janice tilted her chin. ‘And if I were five-foot-ten and looked like Britannia, he wouldn’t dare! And that’s why he picked me – just to have someone to squash. I really do only bear it because of the times you let me help you. If you go away-’