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a day of light breezes Truss expected them to be back for lunch; so from a little before one o’clock he began to haunt the water front. Half past and two o’clock came, but there was still no sign of them, so he bought a big punnet of strawberries from a vendor and ate them disconsolately without sugar while leaning against a bollard.
    As the afternoon wore on his thoughts grew bleaker. He convinced himself that no girl like Fleur would want to go offon her own with a man for a whole day just to hear about his upbringing and to talk sociology. Mental pictures began to form in his mind of the two of them, having beached the boat in some lonely bay, lying in it necking. The thought was unbearable. He tried to thrust it from his mind but could not and, for the first time in his young life, he was seized with the pangs of a hideous jealousy.
    It was nearly five o’clock before he sighted their boat and another twenty minutes before they landed. His stomach gave a nasty twinge as he saw that Fleur’s hair was in disorder, but he tried to rid himself of his suspicions with the thought that it might have been blown about by the wind.
    Stepping ashore, she greeted him gaily, ‘Hullo! What have you been doing with yourself all day?’
    â€˜From one o’clock I’ve been waiting here,’ he replied surlily. ‘I’d expected you back for lunch.’
    â€˜Oh dear!’ She hitched up her slacks, then ran a hand over her hair. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought I said we’d get lunch somewhere. We landed at the end of the peninsula and had ours at the Kanoni Tourist Pavilion. It was heavenly on the water; we had a lovely day.’
    Douglas had been busy tying up the boat. Joining them he, too, apologised with apparent sincerity, but Truss felt sure the real explanation for their lateness in getting back was because they had been enjoying themselves so much that they had decided to leave him in the lurch.
    That evening he decided that he could not bear the sight of them dancing together so after dinner he said he did not feel well, and they set off on their own. As it was again a Saturday, it was extension night at the Corfu Palace, which meant that they would not be back before about half past one.
    Having got to bed, Truss settled down to read but, after a while, he found that his mind was not taking in the story; so he put out the light and attempted to get to sleep. That proved equally useless. In vain he counted sheep or tried to make his mind a blank. Pictures of Fleur constantly floated into it; Fleur that first night in the moonlight suggesting that he shouldcome to her room; Fleur naked, the nipples of her young breasts standing up hard from desire, the roundness of her hips a sight to make any man crazy; Fleur dancing with that damnable, good-looking, coffee-skinned Douglas. Then other imagined pictures of them that made Truss writhe.
    At long last he heard footsteps outside in the corridor. As Douglas’s room was opposite his, that meant they had returned. A glance at the luminous dial of his bedside travelling clock showed Truss that it was only twenty past one; so they would not have lingered on the way home for a necking session in the car. With a sigh of relief he turned over for the hundredth time and resettled himself with new hope of at last getting off to sleep.
    He was just on the point of doing so when he became suddenly wide awake. The sound of a door closed gently had roused him. Then there came footsteps again.
    With his heart hammering furiously, he sat up in bed. Those footsteps could mean only one thing. Douglas had changed into a dressing gown and was now on his way to Fleur’s room.
    For ten agonised minutes Truss wrestled with his chaotic thoughts. Fleur was free, white and twenty-one; those long-honoured qualifications in the United States for doing what one liked. If she wanted to give herself to Douglas she had the right to do so; and he, Truss, had