“Mr. Shelton, do you know anything about these periscopic binoculars?” said Mrs. Dennant’s voice; “they’re splendid for buildin’s, but buildin’s are so disappointin’.  The thing is to get human interest, isn’t it?” and her glance wandered absently past Shelton in search of human interest.

“You haven’t put down what you’ve taken, mother.”

From a little leather bag Mrs. Dennant took a little leather book.

“It’s so easy to forget what they’re about,” she said, “that’s so annoyin’.”

Shelton was not again visited by his uneasiness at their detachment; he accepted them and all their works, for there was something quite sublime about the way that they would leave the dining-room, unconscious that they themselves were funny to all the people they had found so funny while they had been sitting there, and he would follow them out unnecessarily upright and feeling like a fool.

In the ensuing fortnight, chaperoned by the maiden aunt, for Mrs. Dennant disliked driving, he sat opposite to Antonia during many drives; he played sets of tennis with her; but it was in the evenings after dinner—­those long evenings on a parquet floor in wicker chairs dragged as far as might be from the heating apparatus—­that he seemed so very near her.  The community of isolation drew them closer.  In place of a companion he had assumed the part of friend, to whom she could confide all her home-sick aspirations.  So that, even when she was sitting silent, a slim, long foot stretched out in front, bending with an air of cool absorption over some pencil sketches which she would not show him—­even then, by her very attitude, by the sweet freshness that clung about her, by her quick, offended glances at the strange persons round, she seemed to acknowledge in some secret way that he was necessary.  He was far from realising this; his intellectual and observant parts were hypnotised and fascinated even by her failings.  The faint freckling across her nose, the slim and virginal severeness of her figure, with its narrow hips and arms, the curve of her long neck-all were added charms.  She had the wind and rain look, a taste of home; and over the glaring roads, where the palm-tree shadows lay so black, she seemed to pass like the very image of an English day.

One afternoon he had taken her to play tennis with some friends, and afterwards they strolled on to her favourite view.  Down the Toulon road gardens and hills were bathed in the colour of ripe apricot; an evening crispness had stolen on the air; the blood, released from the sun’s numbing, ran gladly in the veins.  On the right hand of the road was a Frenchman playing bowls.  Enormous, busy, pleased, and upright as a soldier, pathetically trotting his vast carcass from end to end, he delighted Shelton.  But Antonia threw a single look at the huge creature, and her face expressed disgust.  She began running up towards the ruined tower.