`Being a game-keeper, no! So long as I'm left alone. But when I have to go messing around at the police- station, and various other places, and waiting for a lot of fools to attend to me...oh well, I get mad...' and he smiled, with a certain faint humour.

`Couldn't you be really independent?' she asked.

`Me? I suppose I could, if you mean manage to exist on my pension. I could! But I've got to work, or I should die. That is, I've got to have something that keeps me occupied. And I'm not in a good enough temper to work for myself. It's got to be a sort of job for somebody else, or I should throw it up in a month, out of bad temper. So altogether I'm very well off here, especially lately...'

He laughed at her again, with mocking humour.

`But why are you in a bad temper?' she asked. `Do you mean you are always in a bad temper?'

`Pretty well,' he said, laughing. `I don't quite digest my bile.'

`But what bile?' she said.

`Bile!' he said. `Don't you know what that is?' She was silent, and disappointed. He was taking no notice of her.

`I'm going away for a while next month,' she said.

`You are! Where to?'

`Venice! With Sir Clifford? For how long?'

`For a month or so,' she replied. `Clifford won't go.'

`He'll stay here?' he asked.

`Yes! He hates to travel as he is.'

`Ay, poor devil!' he said, with sympathy. There was a pause.

`You won't forget me when I'm gone, will you?' she asked. Again he lifted his eyes and looked full at her.

`Forget?' he said. `You know nobody forgets. It's not a question of memory;'

She wanted to say: `When then?' but she didn't. Instead, she said in a mute kind of voice: `I told Clifford I might have a child.'

Now he really looked at her, intense and searching.

`You did?' he said at last. `And what did he say?'

`Oh, he wouldn't mind. He'd be glad, really, so long as it seemed to be his.' She dared not look up at him.

He was silent a long time, then he gazed again on her face.

`No mention of me, of course?' he said.

`No. No mention of you,' she said.