It had become a baby with a big naked head and a gaping bird mouth, opening and shutting. Her father broke into a loud clattering laugh and she woke to see Burnell standing by the windows rattling the Venetian blind up to the very top.

“Hullo,” he said. “Didn’t wake you, did I? Nothing much wrong with the weather this morning.”

He was enormously pleased. Weather like this set a final seal on his bargain. He felt, somehow, that he had bought the lovely day, too — got it chucked in dirt cheap with the house and ground. He dashed off to his bath and Linda turned over and raised herself on one elbow to see the room by daylight. All the furniture had found a place — all the old paraphernalia, as she expressed it. Even the photographs were on the mantelpiece and the medicine bottles on the shelf above the washstand. Her clothes lay across a chair — her outdoor things, a purple cape and a round hat with a plume in it. Looking at them she wished that she was going away from this house, too. And she saw herself driving away from them all in a little buggy, driving away from everybody and not even waving.

Back came Stanley girt with a towel, glowing and slapping his thighs. He pitched the wet towel on top of her hat and cape, and standing firm in the exact centre of a square of sunlight he began to do his exercises. Deep breathing, bending and squatting like a frog and shooting out his legs. He was so delighted with his firm, obedient body that he hit himself on the chest and gave a loud “Ah”. But this amazing vigour seemed to set him worlds away from Linda. She lay on the white tumbled bed and watched him as if from the clouds.

“Oh, damn! Oh, blast!” said Stanley, who had butted into a crisp white shirt only to find that some idiot had fastened the neck-band and he was caught. He stalked over to Linda waving his arms.

“You look like a big fat turkey,” said she.

“Fat. I like that,” said Stanley. “I haven’t a square inch of fat on me. Feel that.”

“It’s rock — it’s iron,” mocked she.

“You’d be surprised,” said Stanley, as though this were intensely interesting, “at the number of chaps at the club who have got a corporation. Young chaps, you know — men of my age.” He began parting his bushy ginger hair, his blue eyes fixed and round in the glass, his knees bent, because the dressing table was always — confound it — a bit too low for him. “Little Wally Bell, for instance,” and he straightened, describing upon himself an enormous curve with the hairbrush. “I must say I’ve a perfect horror….”

“My dear, don’t worry. You’ll never be fat. You are far too energetic.”

“Yes, yes, I suppose that’s true,” said he, comforted for the hundredth time, and taking a pearl penknife out of his pocket he began to pare his nails.

“Breakfast, Stanley.” Beryl was at the door. “Oh, Linda, mother says you are not to get up yet.” She popped her head in at the door. She had a big piece of syringa stuck through her hair.

“Everything we left on the verandah last night is simply sopping this morning. You should see poor dear mother wringing out the tables and the chairs. However, there is no harm done —” this with the faintest glance at Stanley.

“Have you told Pat to have the buggy round in time? It’s a good six and a half miles to the office.”

“I can imagine what this early start for the office will be like,” thought Linda. “It will be very high pressure indeed.”

“Pat, Pat.” She heard the servant girl calling.