'Even if you were to suddenly vanish altogether.'
'I'm not going to, though. I haven't done any loving before worth talking about.'
'Everything's all right now, isn't it?'
'Yes, that's exactly what's all right,' she said. 'Everything.'
'I suppose I might get thumped on the head some day and lose my memory, or go completely senile, but that's the only kind of thing that would make me forget this afternoon.'
'I'd remind you in any case.'
They walked on. The path curved back towards the stream, then into the woods again deeper than before. The shadows under the trees were very strong. When they drew level with a grassy bank a few yards from the path in the opposite direction to the stream, Churchill halted again.
'This looks like a good place to sit down,' he said.
'I don't want to presume, but do you mean sit down or lie down?'
'It's funny you should say that, because it was lying down I had in mind.'
'In that case I think it would be easier for everybody if I took off my dress. Is that all right?'
'Yes.'
When she had hung her dress on a bush and kicked off her shoes, he ran his hand up her bare arm, finding it faintly warm between wrist and elbow, cool above the elbow like the flow of air during their drive, fully warm at the shoulder.
'The grass feels marvelous under your bare feet.'
'I dare say it does, but I can't really see there being any bare feet as far as I'm concerned. I'd have all that shoelace and sock business to contend with. We oughtn't really to take very long.'
'Well, your jacket can come off, anyway.'
'Yes. There's no point in your going on just wearing those, is there?'
'I suppose not.'
'This is quite good grass,' he said a moment later, stroking it, 'but the earth underneath feels pretty solid. I'm afraid your shoulders and so on are going to go through it a bit.'
'There's a way round that.'
'Is there? Oh yes. Oh, yes.'
They kept their eyes on each other. He watched the steady change in her expression as it grew wilder and at the same time more serene, more longing and more contented. At first he thought she was becoming less human, less the person who was Catharine, but then he saw that she was really more human, more Catharine than ever.
When they were lying side by side he slid his arm under her neck and round her shoulders and put his hand on her breast.
After a moment he said, 'There's a lump here, I think. Yes. You feel.'
'Oh yes. What do you think it is?'
'Well, it's only very small. It's probably just a little cyst. I used to get them in the lobes of my ears when I was at school.'
'I suppose I'd better get it seen to.'
'I think it might be as well, yes. As soon as you can.'
They got dressed and prepared to move off.
'Let's go back now,' said Churchill. 'I'm going to get hold of a doctor and arrange for him to see you in the morning. We want to have that cyst cut out before it gets any bigger. I neglected the ones I had at school and they were a hell of a bore. I don't like making a fuss, but I'm the one who's looking after you now.'
'I suppose you'll be going along, will you, Brian?' asked Colonel White. 'Fellow might turn out to be this famous spy of yours, eh?'
'I doubt it, sir,' said Leonard. 'I think we're dealing with a lunatic.'
'Of course. Of course we are. I went over that notice thing rather carefully and had a good think about it. Chap seems to regard himself as unique. As if he's the only one who's ever noticed that decent people sometimes come to sticky ends. Or that all ends are sticky if you look at it in one way. Necessary, though. Anyway, there's precious little that's crazier than imagining you're on a private line to the truth. What about you, Willie?'
'You mean am I going to turn up at this meeting affair, sir? Yes, I think I might as well.'
'I think so, too. Rather comes into your field, doesn't it? Good deal of dissatisfaction with the grand design rolling about in our friend's noddle. Have to see if you can't straighten him out.'
'Yes, there is that,' said Ayscue.
'You surely do not seriously imagine that this man will appear?' asked Major Venables, slowly waving the spent match that had just lit his cigar. 'Or, more likely, men. To me, this farce has every appearance of having
