ceased to rock herself with mirth.

"No, really," she said. "It's a shame to laugh, but you are the limit.
Only you did ask my advice, and I tell you straight you'll be sorry if
you do marry her. What's she like, Wandering Willie? Have some cocoa if
I make it? Go on, do. I'll boil it on the gas-ring."

Michael was touched by her attention, and he accepted the offer of
cocoa. Then he began to describe Lily's appearance. He could not,
however much she might laugh, keep off the object of his quest. Lily
was, after all, the only rational explanation of his present mode of
life.

"She sounds a bit washed out according to your description of her,"
Daisy commented. "Still, everyone to their own fancy, and if you like
blue-eyed bottles of peroxide, that's your look-out."

They were drinking the cocoa she had made, and the flame of the gas-ring
gave just the barren comfort that the kitchen seemed to demand. Another
blackbeetle hurried over the oilcloth. A belated fly buzzed angrily
against the shade of the electric light. Daisy yawned and looked up at
the metal clock with its husky tick.

Suddenly there was the sound of a latchkey in the outer door. She leaped
up.

"Gard, supposing that's Bert come back from Margate!"

She pushed Michael hurriedly across the passage into the front room,
commanding him to keep quiet and stay in an empty curtained recess. Then
she hurried back to the kitchen, leaving him in a very unpleasant frame
of mind. He heard through the closed door Daisy's voice in colloquy with
a deeper voice. Evidently Bert had come back; but his return had been so
abrupt that he had had no time to prevent himself being placed in this
ridiculous position. Would he have to stay in this recess all night? He
peered out into the room, which was in a filigree of bleak shadows made
by the street lamp shining through the muslin curtains of the window.
Through a desolation of undrawn blinds the houses of Little Quondam
Street were visible across the road. The unused room smelt moldy, and if
Michael had ever pictured himself in the complexity of a clandestine
affair, this was not at all the romantic environment he would have
chosen for his drama. This was really damned annoying, and he made a
step in the direction of the kitchen to put an end to the
misunderstanding. Surely Saunders would have realized that his visit to
Daisy was harmless: and yet would he? How stupid she had been to hustle
him out of the way like this. N