'Sane, said Searle sharply.

'Yes; things lose their proper proportions. Which, I take it, is a loss of sanity.

Searle was quiet for a long time, staring at the smooth water as it flooded so slowly towards the bridge and then was flicked under it with the sudden hysteria of water sucked round obstacles in its path.

'Sane, he repeated, watching the place where the water lost control and was sucked under the culvert.

'I'm not suggesting the fellow is mad, Walter said. 'He has just lost hold of common sense.

'And is common sense so desirable a quality?

'An admirable quality.

'Nothing great ever came out of common sense, Searle said.

'On the contrary. Lack of common sense is responsible for practically every ill in life. Everything from wars to not moving up in the bus. I see there is a light in the Mill House. Marta must be back.

They looked up at the pale bulk of the house glowing in the half-dark as a pale flower glows. A single light, still bright yellow in what was left of the daylight, starred the side that looked on the river.

'A light the way Liz likes them, Searle said.

'Liz?

'She likes them golden like that in the daylight. Before the dark turns them white.

For the first time Walter was forced into considering Searle in relation to Liz. It had not crossed his mind until now to consider them in relation to each other at all, since he was not in the least possessive about Liz. This unpossessiveness might have been accounted to him for virtue if it had not sprung directly from the fact that he took her for granted. If by some method of hypnotism the last dregs of Walter's subconscious could have been dragged to the surface, it would have been found that he thought that Liz was doing very well for herself. Even the shadow of such a thought would have shocked Walter's conscious mind, of course; but since he was entirely unself-analytical and largely unselfconscious (a quality that enabled him to perpetrate the broadcasts which so revolted Marta and endeared him to the British public), the farthest his conscious mind went was to hold it gratifying and proper that Liz should love him.

He had known Liz so long that she had no surprises for him. He took it for granted that he knew everything about Liz. But he had not known a simple little fact like her pleasure in lights in the daytime.

And Searle, the newcomer, had learned that.

And, what was more, remembered it.

A faint ripple stirred the flat waters of Walter's self-satisfaction.

'Have you met Marta Hallard? he asked.

'No.

'We must remedy that.

'I have seen her act, of course.

'In what?

'A play called Walk in Darkness.

'Oh, yes. She was good in that. One of her best parts, I think, Walter said, and dropped the subject. He did not want to talk about Walk in Darkness. Walk in Darkness might be a Hallard memory, but it was one that held also Marguerite Merriam.

'I suppose we couldn't drop in now? Searle said, looking up at the light.

'It's a little too near dinner time, I think. Marta isn't the kind of person you drop in on very easily. That, I suspect, is why she chose the isolated Mill House.

'Perhaps Liz could take me down and present me tomorrow.

Walter had nearly said: 'Why Liz? when he remembered that tomorrow was Friday, and that he would be away all day in town. Friday was broadcast day. Searle had remembered that he would not be here tomorrow although he himself had forgotten. Another ripple stirred.

'Yes. Or we might ask her up to dinner. She likes good food. Well, I suppose we had better be getting along.

But Searle did not move. He was looking up the avenue of willows that bordered the flat pewter surface of the darkening water.

'I've got it! he said.

'Got what?

'The theme. The connecting link. The motif.

'For the book, you mean?

'Yes. The river. The Rushmere. Why didn't we think of that before?

'The river! Yes! Why didn't we? I suppose because it isn't entirely an Orfordshire river. But of course it is the perfect solution. It has been done repeatedly for the Thames, and for the Severn. I don't see why it shouldn't work with the smaller Rushmere.

'Would it give us the variety we need for the book?

'Indubitably, said Walter. 'It couldn't be better. It rises in that hilly country, all sheep and stone walls and sharp outlines; then there's the pastoral bit with beautiful farm houses, and great barns, and English trees at their best, and village churches like cathedrals; and then Wickham, the essence of English market towns, where the villein that marched from the town cross to speak to King Richard in London is the same man that prods today's heifer on to the train on its way to the Argentine. Walter's hand stole up to the breast pocket where he kept his notebook, but fell away again. 'Then the marshes. You know: skeins of geese against an evening sky. Great cloudscapes and shivering grasses. Then the port: Mere Harbour. Almost Dutch. A complete contrast to the county at its back. A town full of lovely individual building, and a harbour full of fishing and coastwise traffic. Gulls, and reflections, and gables. Searle, it's perfect!

'When do we start?

'Well, first, how do we do it?

'Will this thing take a boat?

'Only a punt. Or a skiff where it widens below the bridge.

'A punt, Searle said doubtfully. 'That's one of those flat duck-shooting things.

'Approximately.

'That doesn't sound very handy. It had better be canoes.

'Canoes!

'Yes. Can you manage one?

'I've paddled one round an ornamental pond when I was a child. That's all.

'Oh, well, at least you've got the hang of it. You'll soon remember the drill. How far up could we start, with canoes? Man, it's a wonderful idea. It even gives us our title. "Canoes on the Rushmere." A title with a nice swing to it. Like "Drums Along the Mohawk." Or "Oil for the Lamps of China".

'We shall have to tramp the first bit of it. The sheep-country bit. Down to about Otley. I expect the stream will take a canoe at Otley. Though, God help me, I don't anticipate being much at home in a canoe. We can carry a small pack from the source of the river-it's a spring in the middle of a field, I've always understood-down to Otley or Capel, and from there to the sea we canoe. "Canoes on the Rushmere". Yes, it sounds all right. When I go up to town tomorrow I'll go and see Cormac Ross and put the proposition to him and see what he is moved to offer. If he doesn't like it, I have half a dozen more who will jump at it. But Ross is in Lavinia's pocket, so we might as well make use of him if he will play.

'Of course he will, Searle said. 'You're practically royalty in this country, aren't you!

If there was any feeling in the gibe it was not apparent.

'I should really offer it to Debham's, Walter said. 'They did my book about farm life. But I quarrelled with them about the illustrations. They were dreadful, and the book didn't sell.

'That was before you took to the air, I infer.

'Oh, yes. Walter pushed himself off the bridge and began to walk towards the field-path and dinner. 'They did refuse my poems, after the farm book, so I can use that as a get-out.

'You write poems too?

'Who doesn't?

'I for one.

'Clod! said Walter amiably.

And they went back to discussing the ways and means of their progress down the Rushmere.