“My God,” she thought, “if I ever make any claims on any human soul may I be struck dead.”
And a man coming up to her looked curiously at her, wondering why she had twisted round in the path like that.
II
When Valerie came to Queen Street she paused. She could just hear the heavy roll of the waves on the coast. She considered that it could not be much after nine and that she could walk to the gully and back with time to spare before the hotel closed at midnight. She knew the cottagers had returned three days before, and that she would have the road to herself. Few people from the town ever walked up there on the flat. The moon was nearing the full, and she knew it would be wonderful out there by the sea.
Sounds of voices and laughter floated out as she passed Ray Bolton’s house. They were playing bridge in there. She paused a moment to listen. The windows were open and the light streamed out through the lath blinds that screened the verandah. She could hear Mrs. Harris’s high laugh, that undiscriminating laugh that took the flavour out of everything. She could imagine the chatter round those tables, the punctilious behaviour as a thin veneer over brittle tempers and personal predilections. What she detested most about these people was that they were poor copies of other imitations, all straining their imaginations in the process of worshipping the “correct thing.” She wondered if little Mrs. Rhodes was there struggling to keep her personality intact in that circle, a victim of her husband’s position.
Ten minutes after she had left the town behind her she had forgotten it. She drew in long breaths of the rising
