She wandered for a time through the grasses, fingering them, smelling them, and letting the sun fall on her face. When she drifted back to him, he had spread a rug on the grass and was sitting on it, waiting. His look of waiting destroyed the ease that had been created in her by the small freedom of the sun-lit field, and set up a tension. She thought, as she flung herself down, he’s set on something, good Lord, is he going to make love to me so soon? Oh, no, he wouldn’t, not yet. All the same, she lay near him, and was happy and was content to let things take their course.

Later — and not so much later, he would say, teasing her, that she had brought him here because she had decided she wanted him to make love to her, that she had planned it. And she always got furiously indignant, and then as he persisted, set cold towards him. And then she would forget it. And then he came back to it, and because she knew it was important to him, the little recurring wrangle left a poisoned spot which spread. It was not true. In the car she had known he would be her lover, because of the quality of his voice, which she trusted. But at some time, it didn’t matter when. He would know the right time, she felt. And so if the right time was then, that first afternoon alone, it must be right. ‘And what do you suppose I would have done if you hadn’t made love to me?’ she would ask, later, curious and hostile. ‘You’d have been bad-tempered,’ he replied, laughing but with a curious undertone of regret. And the regret, which was genuine, drew her to him, as if they were fellow-victims of some cruelty in life neither could help.

‘But you arranged it all,’ she would say. ‘You even brought out a rug for the purpose. I suppose you always took a rug in the car for afternoon jaunts, just in case.’

‘Of course, nothing like a nice warm rug on the grass.’

At which she would laugh. And later still she would think, chilled: ‘I suppose he had taken other women to that field, it was probably just a habit of his.’

Yet at the time she was perfectly happy. The weight of the city was off her, and the scent of the grasses and the sun were delicious. Then she became aware of his half-ironical smile and sat up, on the defensive. He began to talk, consciously ironical, about her husband. She told him what he wanted to know, briefly, since she had offered the facts last night. And then she told him, also briefly, about the child; but this time she was cursory because she felt guilty because she was here, in the sun, and Michael would have enjoyed the drive and the warm field.