“Welcome,” Barbara said in her sepulchral voice, “to the humble abode.” Gaunt dropped her hand rather quickly.

“Find us very quiet, I’m afraid,” Colonel Claire said, looking quickly at Gaunt and away again. “Not much in your line, this country, what?”

“But we’ve just been remarking,” Gaunt said lightly, “that your landscape reeks of theatre.” He waved his stick at Rangi’s Peak. “One expects to hear the orchestra.” Colonel Claire looked baffled and slightly offended.

“My brother,” Mrs. Claire murmured. Dr. Ackrington limped forward. Dikon’s attention was distracted from this last encounter by the behaviour of Simon Claire, who suddenly lurched out of cover, strode down the steps and seized the astounded Colly by the hand. Colly, who was about to unload the car, edged behind it.

“How are you?” Simon said loudly. “Give you a hand with that stuff.”

“That’s all right, thank you, sir.”

“Come on,” Simon insisted and laid violent hands on a pigskin dressing-case which he lugged from the car and dumped none too gently on the pumice. Colly gave a little cry of dismay.

“Here, here, here!” a loud voice expostulated. Mr. Questing thundered out of the house and down the steps. “Cut that out, young fellow,” he ordered and shouldered Simon away from the car.

“Why?” Simon demanded.

“That’s no way to treat high-class stuff,” bustled Mr. Questing with an air of intolerable patronage. “You’ll have to learn better than that. Handle it carefully.” He advanced upon Dikon. “We’re willing,” he laughed, “but we’ve a lot to learn. Well, well, well, how’s the young gentleman?”

He removed his hat and placed himself before Gaunt. His change of manner was amazingly abrupt. He might have been a lightning impersonator or a marionette controlled by some pundit of second-rate etiquette. Suddenly, he oozed deference. “I don’t think,” he said, “that I have had the honour — ”

“Mr. Questing,” said Dikon.

“This is a great day for the Springs, sir,” said Mr. Questing. “A great day.”

“Thank you,” said Gaunt, glancing at him. “If I may I should like to see my rooms.”

He turned to Mrs. Claire. “Dikon tells me you have taken an enormous amount of trouble on my behalf. It’s very kind indeed. Thank you so much.” And Dikon saw that with this one speech, delivered with Gaunt’s famous air of gay sincerity, he had captivated Mrs. Claire. She beamed at him. “I shall try not to be troublesome,” Gaunt added. And to Mr. Questing: “Right.”

They went in procession along the verandah. Mr. Questing, still uncovered, led the way.

Barbara sat on the edge of her stretcher-bed in her small hot room and looked at two dresses. Which should she wear for dinner on the first night? Neither of them was new. The red lace had been sent out two years ago by her youngest aunt who had worn it a good deal in India. Barbara had altered it to fit herself and something had gone wrong with the shoulder, so that it bulged where it should lie flat. To cover this defect she had attached a black flower to the neck. It was a long dress and she did not as a rule change for dinner. Simon might make some frightful comment if she wore the red lace. The alternative was a short floral affair, thick blue in colour with a messy yellow design. She had furbished it up with a devilish shell ornament and a satin belt and even poor Barbara wondered if it was a success. Knowing that she should be in the kitchen with Huia, she pulled off her print, dragged the red lace over her head and looked at herself in the inadequate glass. No, it would never become her dress, it would always hark back to unknown Aunty Wynne who two years ago had written: “Am sending a box of odds and ends for Ba. Hope she can wear red.” But could she? Could she plunge about in the full light of day in this ownerless waif of a garment with everybody knowing she had dressed herself up? She peered at her face, which was slightly distorted by the glass. Suddenly she hauled the dress over her head, fighting with the stuffy-smelling lace. “Barbara,” her mother called. “Where are you? Ba!”

“Coming!” Well, it would have to be the floral.

But when, hot and desperate, she had finally dressed, and covered the floral with a clean overall, she pressed her hands together. “O God,” she thought, “make him like it here! Please, dear God, make him like it.”

“Can you possibly endure it?” Dikon asked.

Gaunt was lying full length on the modern sofa. He raised his arms above his head. “All,” he whispered, “I can endure all but Questing. Questing must be kept from me.”

“But I told you—”

“You amaze me with your shameless parrot cry of ‘I told you so,’ ” said Gaunt mildly. “Let us have no more of it.” He looked out of the corner of his eye at Dikon. “And don’t look so tragic, my good ass,” he added. “I’ve been a small-part touring actor in my day. This place is strangely reminiscent of a one-night fit-up. No doubt I can endure it. I should be dossing down in an Anderson shelter, by God. I do well to complain. Only spare me Questing, and I shall endure the rest.”

“At least we shall be spared his conversation this evening. He has a previous engagement. Lest he offer to put it off, I told him you would be desolated but had already arranged to dine in your rooms and go to bed at nine. So away he went.”

“Good. In that case I shall dine en famille and go to bed when it amuses me. I have yet to meet Mr. Smith, remember. Is it too much to hope that he will stage another fight?”

“It seems he only gets drunk when his remittance comes in.” Dikon hesitated and then asked: “What did you think of the Claires, sir?”

“Marvellous character parts. Overstated, of course. Not quite West End. A number-one production on tour, shall we say? The Colonel’s moustache is a little too thick in both senses.”

Dikon felt vaguely resentful. “You captivated Mrs. Claire,‘’ he said.

Gaunt ignored this. “If one could take them as they are,” he said. “If one could persuade them to appear in those clothes and speak those lines! My dear, they’d be a riot. Miss Claire! Dikon, I didn’t believe she existed.”

“Actually,” said Dikon stiffly, “she’s rather attractive. If you look beyond her clothes.”

“You’re a remarkably swift worker if you’ve been able to do that.”

“They’re extraordinarily kind and, I think, very nice.”

“Until we arrived you never ceased to exclaim against them. Why have you bounced round to their side all of a sudden?”

“I only said, sir, that I thought you would be bored by them.”

“On the contrary I’m agreeably entertained. I think they’re all darlings and marvellous comedy. What is your trouble?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. I’ve just discovered that I like them. I thought,” said Dikon, smiling a little in spite of himself, “that the tableau on the verandah was terribly sad. I wonder how long they’d been grouped-up like that.”

“For ages, I should think. The dog was plainly exasperated and young Claire looked lethal.”

“It is rather touching,” said Dikon and turned away.

Mrs. Claire and Barbara, wearing their garden hats and carrying trowels, went past the window on tiptoe, their faces solemn and absorbed. When they had gone a little way Dikon heard them whispering together.

“In heaven’s name,” cried Gaunt, “why do they stalk about their own premises like that? What are they plotting?”

“It’s because I explained that you liked to relax before dinner. They don’t want to disturb you. I fancy their vegetable garden is round the corner.”

After a pause Gaunt said: “It will end in my feeling insecure and ashamed. Nothing arouses one’s self-abasement more than the earnest amateur. How long have they had this place?”

“About twelve years, I think. Perhaps longer.”

“Twelve years and they are still amateurs!”

“They try so terribly hard,” Dikon said. He wandered out onto the verandah. Someone was walking slowly round the warm lake towards the springs.