recincts into High Street--a nasty corner--Lord Tybar, alone of the
three, one hand on the steering wheel, half turned in his seat and
twirled the silver-grey bowler in gay farewell.

Or mockery?

X

Through the day Sabre's thoughts, as a man sorting through many
documents and coming upon and retaining one, fined down towards a
picture of himself alone with Nona--alone with her, watching her
beautiful face--and saying to her: "Look here, there were three things
you said, three expressions you used. Explain them, Nona."

Fined down towards this picture, sifting the documents.

He thought, "Tybar--Tybar.--They're just alike in their way of saying
things, Nona and Tybar. That bantering way they talk when they're
together--when they're together. Tybar does, whoever he's with. Not
Nona. Not with me. But with Tybar. She plays up to him when they're
together. And he plays up to her. Everybody says how amusing they are.
They're perfectly suited. They look so dashed handsome, the pair of
them. And always that bantering talk. Nona chose deliberately between
Tybar and me. I know she did. She loved me, till he came along. It's
old. Ten years old. I can look at it. She chose deliberately. I can see
her choosing: 'Tybar or Marko?--oh, dash it, Tybar.' And she chose
right. She's just his mate. He's just her mate. They're a pair. That
bantering, airy way of theirs together. That's just characteristic of
the oneness of their characters. I couldn't put up that bantering sort
of stuff. I never could. I'm a jolly sight too serious. And Nona knew
it. She used to laugh at me about it. She still does. 'You puzzle, don't
you, Marko?' she said this very morning."

He thought, "No, that wasn't laughing at me. Not that. No, it wasn't.
Not that--nor any of it. What did she mean when she said 'There!' like
that when she gave me her hand when she first came in? And took off her
glove first. What did she mean when she said she had to come? 'Well, I
had to come,' she said.--What did she mean when she said she was
flotsam?--_Flotsam_! Why? Made me angry in my voice when I asked her. I
said, 'How can you be flotsam?' And how the devil can she?--Nona, with
Tybar, flotsam? But she said it. I said, 'How can you be flotsam, the
life you've--taken?' I didn't mean to say 'taken' like that. I meant to
have said 'the life you've got, you live.' But I meant taken, chosen.
She did take it, deliberately. She chose between us. I might almost have
heard her