He smiled, unflustered, and said: “We can’t both be sorry. Not when neither of us know what we’re apologizing for.”

“I didn’t think you were apologizing,” she said. It had been so long! She felt lost.

“I wasn’t,” he said. “But you seem disconcerted, so if I’ve done something wrong I will.”

Janet knew she was flushed, red-faced. “It was just that I thought this part of the room, so near the door, wasn’t occupied.” She wished everything wasn’t coming out so badly.

The smile stayed, a reassuring expression. “You too?” he said.

“I don’t understand,” Janet said, thinking in relief that she did, but didn’t want to make any more mistakes.

“I was looking for somewhere to hide,” he said. “Well, not hide exactly: to get out of the way.”

Janet smiled herself, feeling further relief. “Me, too,” she admitted.

“You didn’t come with anyone either?”

“No.”

“Or know anyone?”

“I know the girl whose party it is, Harriet Andrew,” conceded Janet. “She’s a close friend.”

He looked beyond her, unhurriedly and appearing really to look, not just shift his attention casually. “Quite a bunch of people,” he said.

“Harriet gives these sorts of parties often: gets her name in the social columns even.”

He didn’t seemed impressed. “You come to them all?”

“Oh no!” said Janet at once. “I haven’t been to one for a long time.” The last occasion she had been with… she started to remember and then stopped, blocking off the reminiscence.

“I don’t think I fit particularly well here,” he said, coming back to her and smiling again.

“I don’t think I do, either,” she said.

“You caught me.”

“Caught you?”

“I wasn’t trying to steal your space.” He grinned. “I was making a break for it.”

Without being aware of it happening, Janet realized she had relaxed: the words were coming easily and the claustrophobic girdle wasn’t tight around her any more. She said: “I guess I was doing the same thing.”