She skimmed through the article, which, as Miss Easton-Dixon had indicated, was a perfectly straight-forward account of the young man and his work and might equally well have come out of Theatre Arts Monthly. The article welcomed him back to the Coast for his annual stay, envied him being free of the world for the rest of the year, and commended his new portraits of the stars, more especially that of Danny Minsky in Hamlet clothes. 'The tears of laughter that Danny has wrung from us have no doubt blinded us to that Forbes-Robertson profile. It took Searle to show us that, they said.

'Yes, said Emma, 'that's — She had nearly said 'the creature' but stopped herself in time; 'that is the same person.

No, she said cautiously, she did not know how long he was staying-he was Lavinia's guest-but Miss Easton-Dixon should certainly meet him before he left if that were humanly possible.

'If not, said Miss Easton-Dixon, 'do please tell him how much I admire his work.

But that, of course, Emma had no intention of doing. She was not going to mention this little matter at home at all. She went to Evensong and sat in the Trimmings pew looking placid and benevolent and being thoroughly miserable. The creature was not only 'personable', he was a personality, and by that much more dangerous. He had a reputation that for all she knew might vie with Walter's in worldly worth. He no doubt had money, too. It was bad enough when she had only his 'personableness' to fear; now it turned out that he was eligible as well. He had everything on his side.

If it had been possible to call up the powers of darkness against him, she would have done it. But she was in church and must use the means to hand. So she invoked God and all his angels to guard her Liz against the evils in her path; that is to say, against not inheriting Lavinia's fortune when the time came. 'Keep her true to Walter, she prayed, 'and I'll — . She tried to think of some bribe or penance that she could offer, but could think of none at the moment, so she merely repeated: 'Keep her true to Walter, with no inducement added and left it to the unselfish goodness of the Deity.

It did nothing to reassure her nor to bolster her faith in the Deity, to come on her daughter and Searle leaning on the little side gate into the Trimmings garden and laughing together like a pair of children. She came up behind them along the field path from the church, and was dismayed by some quality of loveliness, of youth, that belonged to their gaiety. A quality that was not apparent in any communion between Liz and Walter.

'What I like best is the yard or two of Renaissance before the bit of Border peel, Liz was saying. They were evidently at their favourite game of making fun of the Bradford magnate's folly.

'How did he forget a moat, do you think? Searle asked.

'Perhaps he started life digging ditches and didn't want to be reminded of them.

'It's my guess he didn't want to spend money on digging a hole just to put water in it. They're Yankees, aren't they, up there?

Liz 'allowed' that north-country blood had probably much in common with New England. Then Searle saw Emma and greeted her, and they walked up to the house with her, not self-conscious in her presence or stopping their game, but drawing her into it and sharing their delight with her.

She looked at Liz's sallow little countenance and tried to remember when she had last seen it so alive; so full of the joy of life. After a little she remembered. It was on a Christmas afternoon long ago, and Liz had experienced in the short space of an hour her first snow and her first Christmas tree.

So far she had hated only Leslie Searle's beauty. Now she began to hate Leslie Searle.

It was Emma's hope that Searle would go quietly away before any further evidences of desirableness were revealed to the family; but in that too she was bound to be frustrated. Searle had avowedly come to England for a holiday, he had no relations or intimate friends to visit, he had a camera and every intention of using it, and there seemed no reason why he should not stay at Trimmings and use it. His expressed intention, once he had seen the largely unspoiled loveliness of Orfordshire, was to find a good hotel in Crome and make that a centre for photographic foraging among the cottages and country houses of the neighbourhood. But that, as Lavinia swiftly pointed out, was absurd. He could stay at Trimmings, among his friends, and forage just as far afield and with as good results as he could at Crome. Why should he come back each night to a hotel room and the company of casual acquaintances in a hotel lounge, when he could return to a home and the comfort of his own room in the tower?

Searle would no doubt have accepted the invitation in any case, but the final makeweight was the suggestion that he and Walter might do a book together. No one could remember afterwards who first made the suggestion, but it was one that anyone might have made. It was from journalism that Walter had graduated to the eminence of radio commentator, and an alliance between one of Britain's best-known personalities and one of America's most admired photographers would produce a book that might, with luck, have equal interest for Weston-super-Mare and Lynchburg, Va. In partnership they could clean up.

So there was no question of Searle's departing on Monday morning, nor on Tuesday, nor on any specific day in a foreseeable future. He was at Trimmings to stay, it seemed. And no one but Emma found any fault with that arrangement. Lavinia offered him the use of her Rolls two-seater to take him round the country-it did nothing but lie in the garage, she said, when she was working-but Searle preferred to hire a small cheap car from Bill Maddox, who kept the garage at the entrance to the village. 'If I'm going nosing up lanes that are not much better than the bed of a stream, some of them, I want a car I don't have to hold my breath about, he said. But Liz felt that this was merely a way of declining Lavinia's offer gracefully, and liked him for it.

Bill Maddox reported well of him to the village-'no airs at all and can't be fooled neither; upped with the bonnet and went over her as if he was bred to the trade'-so that by the time he appeared in the Swan with Walter of an evening Salcott St Mary knew all about him and were prepared to accept him in spite of his reprehensible good looks. The Salcott aliens, of course, had no prejudice against good looks and no hesitation whatever in accepting him. Toby Tullis took one look at him and straightway forgot his royalties, the new comedy he had just finished, the one he had just begun, and the infidelity of Christopher Hatton (how had he ever been such a half-wit as to trust a creature of a vanity so pathological that he could take to himself a name like that!) and made a bee-line for the bench where Walter had deposited Searle while he fetched the beer.

'I think I saw you at Lavinia's party in town, he said, in his best imitation-tentative manner. 'My name is Tullis. I write plays. The modesty of this phrase always enchanted him. It was as if the owner of a transcontinental railroad were to say: 'I run trains.

'How do you do, Mr Tullis, said Leslie Searle. 'What kind of plays do you write?

There was a moment of silence while Tullis got his breath back, and while he was still searching for words Walter came up with the beer.

'Well, he said, 'I see you have introduced yourselves.

'Walter, said Tullis, deciding on his line and leaning towards Walter with empressement, 'I have met him!

'Met whom? asked Walter who always remembered his accusatives.

'The man who never heard of me. I have met him at last!

'And how does it feel? asked Walter, glancing at Searle and deciding yet once again that there was more in Leslie Searle than met the eye.