In that thick, steamy world, in the mingled soils of sickly heat, bilious faces, rich food, sensual dancing, heavy scents of women, applied bow mouths, soft perspiring flesh--sprouted and flourished her response to Julian. Rooted in reluctance, nourished by his skilful arts, it grew, a curious plant: stronger and more curious with every stab of reawakening memory. Julian must save her this time: surely his wit and wisdom, surely the unknown world of sexual, emotional and intellectual experience which he held so temptingly, just out of reach--surely these would, in time, heap an abiding mound upon the past. Neither by touch nor look did he seem to desire her. He wove his net with words: he understood her and she felt him coming closer, a step at a time. He made himself the perfect companion--gossiping and exchanging cynicisms with Mamma, executing commissions for her, his car always at her disposal; taking them to hear music, to eat delicious meals; playing tennis with Judith and her hotel acquaintances. He even went so far as to say tennis was good for his asthma and played in the tennis-tournament, with herself for partner; and they were barely defeated in the finals by the Brazilian brother and sister, amid scenes of hilarious enthusiasm. His car was waiting outside the ground to whisk her away from the hot crowd. Happy, perspiring, dazed with heat and fatigue, she climbed in beside him and lay back. ‘We’ll go and find somewhere to bathe,’ he said. ‘Yes!’ ‘And have supper at an inn, and stay out much later than we ought.’ ‘Yes. Oh, Julian, we have done nice things together. I shall always remember them.’ She put a hand on his knee, and he smiled and nodded, all simple and brotherly.... He had tried his very hardest to help her win. She was grateful to him for fitting himself to her mood. The car went spiralling up the vine-covered hills, and the electric air quivered away on each side of them in visible waves. The sun sank magnificently, without a cloud, a blood-red lamp. Its rays had long ago passed from the tortuous, steep and rock-bound way through which they now went; and a grey-green tranquil coolness blessed every sense. Then the road ran into profounder, wooded loneliness, and she espied a stream, leaping and plunging in little falls, far down in the gully below the side of the road. ‘Stop here, Julian. We must bathe.’ She went springing down towards the water and he followed with the bathing suits and towels. The stream was shallow and broken up with boulders: no use for bathing. ‘Let’s follow it, Julian. We’ll find something, I know.’ Soon it took a turn deeper into the wood’s heart, and began to grow in depth and volume; then all at once plunged in a smooth gentle cascade into a wide rock basin. There it had pause, deep and silent, before dropping again at the basin’s further edge in a sheer plumed column, and racing on downwards, and downwards again.