The woman shot the bolts and picked up the cheap pink glass lamp without answering. Mr. Dainopoulos made his way upstairs. There was no light in the room looking out over the sea. In their chamber beyond, a night-light, very small and rose-coloured, was burning on a small table below a picture of the Virgin, as though it were a shrine. It took the place of one, for his wife made the most of his rather dilapidated devoutness, and often left a candle burning there. There was an ulterior motive in her action which she had never formulated exactly even to herself. This was the appeal which a strange and sensuous religion made to her romantic instinct. She would always be Church of England herself; but the impression made by candles and an ikon upon her girl-friends in Haverstock Hill in North London was always before her. She could hear them breathe the word "ikon," and then draw in their breath in an ecstasy of awe. And the thought of it gave her pleasure. But she was not in the chamber and he returned to the other room in search of her. She was lying as before, her eyes closed and her hands clasped lightly over the tartan rug. A screen had been opened and stationed between her and the window. This was the hour to which his thoughts went forward occasionally during the day of chaffering on the front, or in his blue-distempered office with its shabby chestnut fittings in the Cité Saul. To the western cynic there was a rich humour in the sheer fortuitousness of their meeting in the midst of a drowning multitude. To him it was not humorous at all. To him it was significant of a profound fatality. To him it confirmed his inherited faith in omens and the finger of God. She was a common enough type of woman in most things, yet she embodied for him a singular ideal of human achievement. He knew of nothing in the world comparable with her, and the knowledge that she was his was at times almost unbelievable. Whether she loved him was a question he never faced. He believed it, and doubted, and believed again. He knew by instinct that it was not a matter of importance as was the fact of possession. He extracted a rare and subtle pleasure from the fragrant ambiguity of her smile. After all, though it may be doubted if he had ever entertained the thought, he was fortunate in his circumstances. He had no need to be jealous or watchful. She lay there quietly, thinking of course of him, while he was on his affairs in the port.