"Sex isn't a laughing matter;
it's serious."

"Perhaps," answered Mr. Scogan, "perhaps I'm an obscene old man. For I
must confess that I cannot always regard it as wholly serious."

"But I tell you..." began Mary furiously. Her face had flushed with
excitement. Her cheeks were the cheeks of a great ripe peach.

"Indeed," Mr. Scogan continued, "it seems to me one of few permanently
and everlastingly amusing subjects that exist. Amour is the one human
activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate,
if ever so slightly, over misery and pain."

"I entirely disagree," said Mary. There was a silence.

Anne looked at her watch. "Nearly a quarter to eight," she said. "I
wonder when Ivor will turn up." She got up from her deck-chair and,
leaning her elbows on the balustrade of the terrace, looked out over the
valley and towards the farther hills. Under the level evening light the
architecture of the land revealed itself. The deep shadows, the bright
contrasting lights gave the hills a new solidity. Irregularities of the
surface, unsuspected before, were picked out with light and shade.
The grass, the corn, the foliage of trees were stippled with intricate
shadows. The surface of things had taken on a marvellous enrichment.

"Look!" said Anne suddenly, and pointed. On the opposite side of the
valley, at the crest of the ridge, a cloud of dust flushed by the
sunlight to rosy gold was moving rapidly along the sky-line. "It's Ivor.
One can tell by the speed."

The dust cloud descended into the valley and was lost. A horn with the
voice of a sea-lion made itself heard, approaching. A minute later Ivor
came leaping round the corner of the house. His hair waved in the wind
of his own speed; he laughed as he saw them.

"Anne, darling," he cried, and embraced her, embraced Mary, very nearly
embraced Mr. Scogan. "Well, here I am. I've come with incredulous
speed." Ivor's vocabulary was rich, but a little erratic. "I'm not late
for dinner, am I?" He hoisted himself up on to the balustrade, and
sat there, kicking his heels. With one arm he embraced a large stone
flower-pot, leaning his head sideways against its hard and lichenous
flanks in an attitude of trustful affection. He had brown, wavy hair,
and his eyes were of a very brilliant, pale, improbable blue. His head
was narrow, his face thin and rather long, his nose aquiline. In old
age--though it was difficult to imagine Ivor old--he might grow to have
a