“Besides, I don’t believe you ever patted my head in my pram.”

“Besides what?” Women were really quite incapable of reason.

Thomasina’s dimple showed. It was rather a deep one, and very becomingly placed. She said,

“Oh, just besides-”

Peter now felt superior enough to look at her again.

“My good child, I remember it perfectly. I was eight years old-in fact I was getting on for nine. You needn’t imagine it was a caress, because it wasn’t. You had a lot of black curls all over your head, and I wanted to see if they felt as stiff as they looked.”

“They did not look stiff!”

“They looked as stiff as wood shavings, only black.”

The dimple reappeared.

“And what did they feel like?” Thomasina’s voice had that undermining lilt.

Quite suddenly Peter had the feel of those soft springing curls under his hand. She had them still. He said firmly,

“They felt like feathers. And that’s enough about that. You just brought it up to change the subject, and I’m not changing it. This is not a conversation about your hair, it’s a conversation about Anna Ball. She was one of your lame dogs when you were at school, and you’ve kept on propping her ever since. Now that she has apparently faded out, instead of thanking your lucky stars you go looking for trouble and trying to hunt her up again.”

“She hasn’t got anyone else,” said Thomasina obstinately.

Peter produced the frown which meant that he was really beginning to get angry.

“Thomasina, if you go on saying that, I shall lose my temper. The girl has made other friends, and she has faded. For heaven’s sake, let her go!”

Thomasina shook her head.

“It isn’t like that. She doesn’t make friends-that’s always been the bother. It was horrid for her in the war, you know, being half German, and she got an inferiority complex. Her mother was a morbid sort of person-Aunt Barbara knew her. So I don’t think Anna had much chance.”