He broke off, pale in the face.

“And what is the man at Stacks Gate like?” asked Connie.

“A big baby sort of fellow, very low-mouthed. She bullies him, and they both drink.”

“My word, if she came back!”

“My God, yes! I should just go, disappear again.”

There was a silence. The pasteboard in the fire had turned to grey ash.

“So when you did get a woman who wanted you,” said Connie, “you got a bit too much of a good thing.”

“Ay! Seems so! Yet even then I’d rather have her than the never-never ones: the white love of my youth, and that other poison-smelling lily, and the rest.”

“What about the rest?” said Connie.