‘Yeah. It certainly looked like it.’ He laughed, all his teeth showing. ‘When I saw that guy shrug his shoulders back there — I thought, boy! that’s it. Where do you live?’ Ella told him, and added: ‘Have you got somewhere?’ ‘I’ll find myself a hotel.’ ‘At this time of night it won’t be easy. I’d ask you to stay with me, but I’ve got two rooms, and my son’s in one of them.’ ‘That’s very sweet of you, no, I’m not worried.’ And he wasn’t. It would soon be dawn; he had no place to sleep; and he was as exuberant and fresh as he had been early in the evening. He dropped her, saying that he would be very happy if she would dine with him. Ella hesitated, then agreed. They would meet, therefore, the following evening, or rather, that evening. Ella went upstairs, thinking that she and the American would have nothing to say to each other and that the thought of the coming evening already bored her. She found her son sleeping in a room that was like the cave of a young animal; it smelled of healthy sleep. She adjusted the covers over him, and sat for a while to watch the pink young face, already visible in the creeping grey light from the window, to see the soft gleam from his tufted brown hair. She thought: He’s like the American in type — both are square and large and loaded with strong pink flesh. Yet the American repels me physically; yet I don’t dislike him, the way I disliked that fine young ox, Robert Brun. Why not? Ella went to bed, and for the first time in many nights, did not summon the memory of Paul. She was thinking that forty people who had given themselves up for dead were lying in bed, alive, scattered all over the city.

Her son woke her two hours later, radiant with surprise at her being there. Since she was still officially on holiday, she did not go to the office, but informed Patricia on the telephone that the serial was unbought, and that she was unredeemed by Paris. Julia was rehearsing for a new play. Ella spent the day alone, cleaning, cooking, rearranging the flat; and playing with the boy when he came home from school. It was not until late that the American, whose name now turned out to be Cy Maitland, telephoned to say he was in her hands: what would she like to do? The theatre? The opera? Ballet? Ella said it was too late for any of these, and suggested dinner. He was at once relieved: ‘To tell you the truth, shows aren’t in my line, I don’t go to shows much. Now tell me where you’d like to have dinner?’ ‘Do you want to go somewhere special? Or a place where you can get steaks, something like that?’ Again he was relieved. ‘That’d suit me fine — I’ve got pretty simple tastes in the food line.’ Ella named a good solid restaurant and put aside the dress she had chosen for the evening: it was the kind of dress she had never worn with Paul, out of all kinds of inhibitions; and which she had been wearing since, defiantly. She now put on a skirt and a shirt, and made herself up to look healthy rather than interesting.