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did not answer her, but as he looked at her he thought. Yes, she certainly does. And where had she learned it? She looked nineteen, she said she was twenty-four, and she had the knowledge of an old whore mistress. The last thought brought him up on his elbow to stare down at her, and it was as if he was reading the words written on her naked body: She was a tart. A little prostitute, that's what she was.
    He got off the bed and dressed with his back to her, pulling on his clothes with jerky movements. When he made for the door she said to him, "Some people are never satisfied." He turned and looked at her but could find nothing to say. As he went to close the door behind him she said, "I'll be seeing you." It sounded like a threat.
    He pulled on his shoes, got into his coat, wound his scarf around his neck, took up his hat and let himself out into the street. It was still snowing heavily, and he stood for a moment bemused. He must have been stark, staring mad.
    He entered the long cut, lifting his feet high with each step, and when he reached the end of it where the wind had drifted the snow to the side and left a small clear space he stood for a minute leaning his back against the wall. What had he let himself in for? This is what happened when men went abroad. Peter Thompson had told him why Arthur Rice went off on his lone tour at least once a year. It could happen abroad and no consequences. But this had happened in Fellburn, in the town where he was known by practically everyone, where he was known as a churchman, for the simple reason that he sang in the choir, and, as it happened, with a young girl in his firm, a girl he'd see every day in the week, even if it was only her head through the glass partition of the pool. God! What had he done? He must have been raving, barmy.
    He hadn't been all that drunk, he had known what he was doing. Or had he? He'd never had so much whisky at one go before. And on top of all that sherry. He rubbed his hand over his snow-covered tace. it was no use maKing excuses ror nimseir, it was done, ana he.
    Harry Blenheim, had done it. Or had he? He was feeling again her bouncing, struggling bare body. But it didn't tie up with the everyday picture of her, small, neat and soft. Yet he'd heard of women like her; he had heard body-hungry men easing themselves with stories of loving amazons. But she hadn't been just one amazon, she had been half-a-dozen. How long was he there altogether? He pushed his coat sleeve up to peer at his watch, then realised with deep dismay that he had left it in the bedroom. The strap had caught at her skin and he had dragged it off his wrist and thrown it on the side table. It was a gold watch with a gold link strap and had been Esther's present to him on their seventeenth wedding anniversary and had an inscription inside to that effect. God 1 What was he going to do now? He'd have to go back. He turned, but didn't go immediately down the cut; he had to will his body to move.
    He had just reached the end of the cut when he saw a woman standing by the door he was making for. She was banging on it as she kicked the snow from her feet. When the door opened he caught a blurred glimpse of the girl. Within a second the door was closed.
    That settled that. He wasn't going in there and have to face the mother; no, not if he never got the watch.
    When he again reached the end of the cut he stopped once more, his thoughts racing now. How was he going to face them at home, Esther and Gail? Gail? It would be harder to face Gail.
    "You all right, mister?" The man coming out of the cut was looking into his face, and he pulled himself from the wall and said, "Yes, thank you. Just a little exhausted. It's heavy going."
    "You're telling me ... Far to go?"
    "Holt Avenue." They were plodding along side by side now.
    "Oh, that's yon side, isn't it?"
    "Yes, it's some way. But I'll cut across the Market and keep to the main road. That should ease things."
    "That's going out of your-way,"