As far as he could read her thoughts Gerda had decided to remain entirely noncommittal over the matter of the two hundred, postponing, he suspected, any struggle about it until she realized more clearly which way the wind was going to blow. She gave him a lively description, as they sat down to their meal, of a visit she had had that morning from her mother and Lobbie. It transpired that Lob was to start his first term at the Grammar School when the holidays ended, and that Mrs. Torp, in complete ignorance of the ways of such places, was assuming that her son-in-law would be her son’s constant and indulgent preceptor!

When their supper was finished Gerda leaned over and reached for an open book that lay on the edge of the dresser. Lighting a cigarette as frowningly and awkwardly as if it had been the first she had ever smoked, she pulled the lamp towards her. “I’ve got to an exciting part,” she said. And then, a second later, “I think Theodoric the Icelander is the nicest book I’ve ever read!”