Roddy’s voice had forced a note of carelessness ... as if he were trying to pretend to Martin that nothing had happened; that the female had not suddenly singled him out and stretched an inviting hand to him as he stood beside his friend. Even Roddy was aware of it. ‘No,’ said Martin, ‘I won’t dine with Tony. I’ll see you to-morrow perhaps.’ He waved his hand and turned away. The car started. She was alone with a strange man. The night was dark, with a piercing wind and a faint flurry of snow in the air. Roddy drove at a great pace, and she sat beside him in silence, her shoulder touching his. ‘Cold?’ he said suddenly. ‘No, I don’t feel--anything.’ All of life was concentrated in her dark beating mind: her body was insensible to the weather. She saw the gates of College fly past. Its lights gleamed and were gone; and she could not speak. On they went, the long straight empty road flung before them in small lengths by the headlights and rolled up into nothingness behind them, cast away for ever. He stopped the car suddenly. ‘Where’s this place?’ ‘I think we’ve passed it long ago.’ The wind took her small voice away from him. He leaned towards her. ‘What?’ She turned to him. ‘I think we’ve passed it long ago.’ ‘I think we have.’ Silence. The great wind blowing through illimitable deeps of night lifted and whirled her beyond time and space. She saw his hand lying on the wheel--a pale blur; and her own crept out and lay beside it; and she stared at them both. He watched her hand fall beside his and did not move a hair’s breadth nearer to touch it. He and she were alone together. No need for speech or movement. Their hands would lie motionless, side by side, for ever and ever. She heard him laugh softly; and as he laughed her hand came quickly to her lap. ‘Well, what d’you want to do?’ he said very low. ‘I don’t want to go back.’ ‘Do you want to go on?’ ‘Yes.’ The car went forward again. Once she leaned towards him and said in his ear: ‘Roddy!’ ‘Yes?’ ‘_You_ didn’t want to go back, did you?’ ‘No.’ She lay back again, mindlessly at peace in the midst of the roaring of the wind, and the road’s monotonous unfolding. Once he burst out laughing, patted her knee and cried: ‘_Aren’t we mad?_’ His voice rang boyishly, happily. Now came the snow, thinly at first, but soon in wild drifting clouds, blotting out the road, settling thick and fast over all, sifting and piling on the wind-screen. ‘Oh Lord, we must turn,’ said Roddy. ‘This is frightful.’ He turned the car and then stopped her to light a cigarette. She saw his face, lit by the flare of the match, glow suddenly, warmly out of the darkness with unknown curves and strange planes of light and shadow, and narrowed eyes, eyes not human, never-to-be-forgotten. He waved the dwindling flame in her face. ‘Solemn face! What are you staring at? Smile--quick, quick, before the match goes out!’ The match went out. ‘I am smiling, Roddy.’