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failure to take advantage of life’s opportunities, like the opportunity offered to him on the previous evening. He even felt that he would never gain the upper hand over what was on the whole a limited past and a limiting future until he crossed that same limit, that it might at some point prove crucial to recognise that limit and to decide no longer to respect it, to reach the edge and to behave as if it were no longer there, and in that way to be free. And that certain situations, and certain persons represented that challenge … But behaviour is as much a question of habit as it is of principle, and he thought that at his age habits could no longer be broken. He was condemned to be what he had always been; indeed he must be careful, vigilant even, if he wished to remain the same, as he suspected that he did. Why else had he been so quick to recognise anomalies in his own attitude, his very slight cruelty during the dinner, a cruelty which had felt so liberating but which had been followed almost at once by a sensation of danger?
    The upshot of all this was that he had better steer clear of the edge if he did not want to ruin the rest of his life, and that he had better accept the fact that he was a dull character who was unlikely to comport himself with dignity in untoward situations. His dignity had been hard won, and he was not about to abandon it now. As the morning grew lighter thevery idea of a man of his age amusing himself with a girl young enough to be his daughter seemed grotesque, unseemly; he rejected it utterly. And the girl had been quicker than he to reach this conclusion; hence her anger, both at his amusement and at his belatedly respectable reaction. He must therefore, as the priests said, avoid the occasion of sin, must barricade himself if necessary behind the walls of his accustomed habits and routines. He felt so disgusted with himself for his pitifully sportive impulses that he concluded that the girl deserved better, even if she herself was a complete mystery. Where previously he had been afraid of her he was now afraid for her. All in all it might be better for both their sakes to make sure that each of them stayed out of the other’s way.
    He went into the kitchen and helped himself to a couple of teabags from Mrs Cardozo’s private store, saw that there was nothing to eat, and that he must shop and cook something and generally behave in a sensible manner. The trouble was that he had no taste for it. This new problem—of how to get through the uneventful day—was liable to preoccupy him unless he took violent action. For a variety of reasons he judged it imperative to get out of the house. He seized the tweed hat he wore only on a Sunday, and that only for walking in the park, and made for the front door. His instinct was to shut it firmly behind him, signalling to the world that he was his own man and had done nothing of which he could be ashamed or for which he could be called to account. Then, obeying some other instinct which he recognized as equally strong, he pulled it to with extreme caution, tiptoed past the Dunlops’ door, and only reverted to normal speed when he was on the stairs. After all, hereasoned, she was probably sleeping. And it was in both their interests to keep their lives completely separate. At least, it was in his interest to do so. Out in the blessedly normal street he was alarmed by the divagations of his recent thinking. Such speculation was outside his normal parameters. He resolved to put it behind him once and for all.
    The park received him into its indifferent embrace. The morning was fine: sun sparkled on dew, on mica. He walked towards the Peter Pan statue and watched the light flashing off the water of the lake as frantic geese and ducks, scrabbling for the food held out by nervous children, disturbed its placid surface. He watched the same thing every Sunday morning, without ever quite thinking it delightful. With the sun in his eyes, and thus almost