Why should there be?"

"Obvious, isn't it? I mean, there can't be much in common otherwise, can
there? Unless the man's a sentimental ass. It's as if you or I were to
marry one of the girls out there in the yard, milking the cows. She'd be
awfully useful for that job ... milking cows ... but you wouldn't want
her to be doing it all the time. It depends, I suppose, on what you want
to do. If you've got any ambition!..."

He did not finish the sentence, but Henry understood and nodded his head
as if he agreed with him.

"I must trot off," Gilbert said suddenly, going towards the door. "I'm
keeping you!..." He paused with his fingers on the handle of the door.
"I say, Quinny," he said, "do you know anything about women?"

"No, not much," Henry answered. "Do you?"

"No. Funny, isn't it?" he replied, and then he went out of the room.

Henry sat still for a moment, staring at the closed door, and then
turned back to the writing-table and took the letter to Sheila from
beneath the blotting-paper. He read it through and sat staring at it
until the writing became a dancing blur.... He got up, carrying the
letter in his hand, and went to the door and opened it. He tried to call
"Gilbert!" but the name came out in a whisper, and before he could call
again, he heard the noise of laughter and then the sound of a young
voice singing. Mary was downstairs, teasing Ninian. He could hear
Ninian, half laughing, half growling, as he shouted, "Don't be an old
ass, Mary!"

He shut the door and went back to the writing-table, still holding the
letter in his hand, and while he stood there, a gong was sounded in the
hall.

"Lord!" he said, "I shall have to hurry!" and he tore up the letter and
put it in the waste-paper basket.

8

They passed their time in bathing and boating and walking, and sometimes
Mary was with them, but mostly she was not. They went out in the
mornings, soon after breakfast, taking food with them, and seldom
returned until the evening. They took long tramps to Honiton and Lyme
Regis and Sidmouth, and once they walked to Exeter and returned home by
train. Mary liked boating and bathing, but she did not care for walking,
and the distances they travelled were beyond her strength; and so it
came about that gradually, during Henry's stay at Boveyhayne, she ceased
to take part in their outings. It seemed odd to him that she did not
make any reference to their love-making. She called him "Quinny" and was
friendly